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Commercial Motor has always had a soft spot for the Stralis, believing it deserves a higher place in the perceived quality rankings than it has managed to date. Whenever Iveco can get the right bums on its inevitably distinctively trimmed driving seats, its chances in the marketplace improve dramatically. To help this process Iveco is sending a convoy of 100 Stralises on a pan-European road trip for the rest of this year, providing those seats at 350 sites across the Continent.

This is just one aspect of a major marketing initiative designed to raise the Stralis's profile. Key to the campaign is Iveco's well publicised sponsorship of the All Blacks (it's not clear who Iveco will be cheering for if Italy has to play New Zealand for the right to meet Wales in the World Cup final).

A major part of the campaign is to target Northern Europe, where Iveco brand awareness is at a surprisingly low level. Iveco CEO Paulo Monferino even fancies a pop at the daunting Swedish market, where the two home teams account for well over 90% of sales and Iveco found just one Stralis buyer last year.

Whether rugby union is the right medium for this market is debatable as one of our Swedish colleagues pointed out, every rugby player in Sweden knows every other player personally. Other aspects of the campaign include TV advertising during Grand Prix car races revamped showroom displays and brochures and a  new dedicated website.

With a new Daily in place and the revised Stralis here, the next step will be a slightly revamped Trakker, launched next month at the Bauma construction show in Munich. That only leaves the Eurocargo to be updated we expect the result of this to arrive at the Amsterdam RAI Show in October.

There is always room for improvement in the UK market, which new MD Henk van Leuven will no doubt be expected to achieve, and Iveco bosses have identified one area where the marque is lacking: financial services products. Monferino says the first stages of Iveco's partnership with Barclays is going well, with an extended range of products in the pipeline for a launch at the start of 2008.