The last time we were in the classroom, we were talking about branding, and Sam brought up an interesting point. This was how certain car companies, create other brands, if they want to take the company in another direction. For example, Toyota released its youth oriented Scion division in 2002. And Nissan came out with its Luxury Infiniti brand about 20 years ago, and finally Honda owns the 'on the rise' Acura brand. Anyway, these automakers had a good enough reason to create a whole new company, but sometimes a car company just wants to release a single car without going through the trouble of coming up with a whole new deal. For example, Sam brought up the Hyundai Genesis in class, which has its own website, and a distinct lack of Hyundai badges. Hyundai wanted to release a luxury car, but didn't have enough reason, or money, or motive to create a new company. If you look at the sedan version, from the front it looks quite like a Mercedes C Class, but is much less expensive. A second example, is Nissan Motor Company. They released their 911 GT3 beater- the GT-R (pictured at top) in 2007. It is an incredibly fast and powerful car, which is unlike the Nissan we all know, makers of the mid range Maxima, Sentra, and Altima. And if you look closely at it, you will be hard pressed to find a Nissan badge on it. There is a small one on the back, but on the wheel and front you will find the sleek red GTR insignia. Yet another example is the Chrysler 300, which looks strikingly like a Bentley Mulsanne. (See if you can tell the difference!) From Mercedes' AMG division, to the Chevrolet Corvette, to the Audi R8, the examples of this trend in car companies are bountiful. What do you think about branding in cars or in general?
There are a lot of companies that have interesting branding examples. Just one criticism first-- the Chrysler may look like a 300C, but it came out before the mulsanne (by about 6 or 7 years). It seems like a hard argument to make that Bentley was trying to align themselves with failing Chrysler. Chrysler actually took many design cues from both Bentley and Rolls Royce, though not the Mulsanne.
ReplyDeleteCompanies like Bentley and Rolls Royce have undergone some rebranding as of late. During the eighties, when both were owned by leighland, a Rolls Royce was an "upmarket" Bentley. Then, Bentley went independant, essentially failed, then joined VW group. Now VW group is trying to make the Bentley as reputable a brand as Rolls Royce. BMW owns Rolls Royce, and this is quite a problem for Bentley sales. While Rolls Royce made the massive Phantom that fir in with the Roller brand, the 90-some percent german Bently Continentals did. Of course the continentals have sold in much higher volumes, but that is due to the fact that they are less than half the price.
VW group has a lot of different branding techniques. Because they own so many brands (VW, Bentley, Audi, Seat, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bugatti) they have to be able to differentiate the brands while using the "parts bin" to keep their production costs down. The parts bin is parts that are used throughout the brand. For example, the Golf platform issued on over ten cars including The Audi A3 the Seat Skoda THe VW Jetta and Golf and Golf plus and some others I can't think of. Each of these cars is distinctly different and would not attract the same customer. What is the reason for this? The branding. VWs are for sensible families. Skodas are for young urbanites. Audis are for BMW fans.
Audi used to be a competitor with swedish brands like Volvo and Saab. After VW took over, they made a conscious decision to be seen as competition with BMW. The first thing that they did was improve their cars to make them comparable to BMWs. Other than the Quattro of the 80s, they had never had a real "drivers" car. They came out with "prestige" cars that aren't as much to earn a profit as they are to change a brand image. The TT was originally one of these, though it was more popular than expected and has become wildly profitable. The R8 is a much better example.
VW group uses quite a few halo cars. Beyond the Audis, the Veyron and the Phaethon. Both of these are love children of Ferdinand Piech, a car love and VW group CEO. He has used Halo cars in unprecedented ways. The Veyron will never make a profit, despite its multi million dollar price tag. THis may seem crazy, but think of the number of people it has brought to the GTI. THe GTI, by the way, has the same gearbox (albeit smaller) as the veyron. The Phaethon was built as VW wanted to move above the other brands that they had recently acquired (Skoda and Seat). The Phaethon was the plan. The car, a 7-series competitor, was built to ridiculous standards. It had criteria so stringent that half the engineers quit and said it was impossible. It was perfection. No one in the US was willing to spending 60 grand for a VW in the US so they don't sell it here anymore.
I think that says a lot about the branding of cars. In the US, we are willing to spend a little over a Camry for a Passat. We aren't willing to move down to a VW badge even if it means getting what is essentially a re-badged Continental Flying Spur. Luxury cars don't seem to make sense without the marque.
Indeed, the luxury car scene is possible the best example of Branding of cars. Mercedes, in an attempt to overtake some BMW sales, is offering AMG cars that handle (as apposed to boats with supercharged V8s).
Alot of car companies seem to be trying to move in to the sporty arena, especially american cars. Cadillac was, until recently, just a series of re-badged GMs, are now becoming their own cars. The last vestige of the well-selling Cadillac boat is the Escalade. THis is a Suburban. No one sees a cadillac and says, "I prefer the build quality of this car." or says, "I prefer the engine of this car." Why? they are the same as the "lower" cars. People buy escalades for one reason-- the Cadillac badge.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, as Aston MArtin discovered as their cars became akin to muscle cars in the 70s and 80s, you cannot support a brand on a history of luxury alone. Cadillac has come out with their first modern bespoke vehicle in what seems like forever-- the CTS. They want to be compared to BMW,so what do they do, the make a CTS-V that has 50 more horses than an M5.
Another brand that is trying to cement itself as a luxury brand, to little avail, is Infiniti. They are simply not seen as as desirable as other brands. Infiniti has done a few things. First and foremost is make their cars as expensive as the other brands but have them come with a lot of equipment standard. This allows their brand to gain the reputation as just as expensive as say BMW, without being too expensive to become as popular. Another thing that they do (relatively well) is have handling to match BMWs. Now Infiniti has a new slogan-- the human touch. They are trying to avoid the sterile idea that people get when they think of Japanese cars. ON top of that, the wood in the new M has silver flecks polished in. This may seem ridiculous, and it is. You can't see it, and it probably doesn't cost that much more than normal wood. They want the bragging.
A lot of Japanese companies have had trouble moving up the ladder. Lexus is seen as proof that a company can do this. Personally, I think that Lexus merely got lucky as opposed to doing a commemorable job with branding. As Mercedes fell into their quality slump of the 90s, Lexus (with amazing reliability) was there to help. Japanese car companies and execs at other wanna-be lux companies will often cite Lexus as proof that a company can climb to the top.
While Japanese companies aspire to be seen as top tier brands, their friends across the water are trying to be seen as toyota level brands. Hyundai has come out with cars like the Genesis, Genesis Coupe and the new Sonata, which I think is quite nice. Kia is coming out with more youth oriented cars-- the Forte and the soul, probalby in an attempt to lure buyers into their brand now and mature the brand with the customers.
ReplyDeleteToyota had that smae idea a few years ago with Scion. The Xb was actually the stylistic inspiration for the soul. When Toyota came out with Scion, the plan was to get young urbanites who want cool, cheap cars and put them in scions until they are old enough to buy toyotas. They expected that, without any direst competition, the cars would sell like hotcakes, and therefore did not put much money into an ad campaign. They did sell well-- to senior citizens. Toyota had to literally instruct the public that this was a brand for the youth. Guess what happened? Yep, young people started buying them.
Attracting a youthful clientele is useful for two main reasons. First, they buy things more often. and second, they will be customers for longer. This was the American car company's problem with their luxury brands-- their clients literally started dying off.
Another Luxury carmaker that has made a paradigm shift in the way that they market their cars is BMW. They still use the Ultimate driving machine slogan, but that is being faded out in lieu of Joy is BMW. This new slogan features approachable models smiling and driving BMWs instead of chisel-jawed race car driver types driving M5s through mountain passes. Why are they doing this-- they have gone too far upmarket, so to speak. They look too pretentious and are tying to remain "of the people."
Ford is trying to move upmarket with their Taurus SHO. Indeed, it looks better than all other Tauruses, but it also has a very interesting engine. Instead of the normal american V8, it has a turbo-V6. They are trying to pull people who might get a base Audi or BMW to buy this instead. Like the Phaethon, this is meant to raise the whole ford brand, and is priced below its competition (though not to the extent of the Phaethon). The Phaethon was a bigger risk, as it was a bespoke car, it had the possibility to help the brand more, but cost a lot more. I don't think it will pay off. The SHO will show us in the future (get it). They do a good job identifying their competition-- a commercial features a SHO overtaking an unbadged A6.
Chrysler is facing a series of branding problems right now. With a whole new brand partnership, Fiat, they have to figure out how to create the balance that VW has, and not make their cars look like GM and Ford platform Sharing. The Viper has been discontinued and will come back, probably with a ferrari engine, in a few years. What does this say about the Viper brand and how will it affect the Viper and Ferrari brands, I don't know. I do know that Chrysler has done a pretty good job using the Lancia Delta as a Chrysler Delta. Though it is only a concept, it looks excellent and fits the Chrysler brand well. Dodge will help Fiat by giving them a RWD platform for their upcoming 169. Obviously Alfa Romeo can't sell a Charger with a Alfa badge, they will need to downplay the American aspect of the car.
And that is what car branding is all about-- downplaying the associated less expensive cars and flouncing the associated more expensive cars.