Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Thot bubbled #9
Isn't it interesting that auto manufacturers with brand and sub-brand products for various segments make it a point to riff off the mother brand only at the lower levels but not with their products meant for the upper crust? For instance, Nissan and Toyota drop the mother brand name from the Infiniti and the Lexus. Which makes me wonder whether brands that are first perceived as meant for the upper crust would retain the mother brand name if they were to launch a product for the mass market. I think they would. I think only brands that choose to scale up choose not to be associated with their poorer siblings and thus drop the mother brand from their exclusive models. If a premium brand were to scale down, I think it might be quite happy to pull in some positive imagery from its upper crust associations. Quite a fascinating study in humano-brand psychologicalities, no?
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4 comments:
Ubermaniam but isn't this restricted only to Toyota and Nissan. Other luxury car makers like Merc, BMW, Audi, Masserati, Porsche etc. has never done any similar activity of dropping their mother brand from their luxury car. For that matter other mass market car makers like VW, Ford, Honda or Chevy hasn't done anything similar. Is it because Toyota & Nissan entered a new market in US (unknown Japanese brand at that point of time) making luxury car they had to drop their mother brand to create an image all by itself?? I agree when they launch a lower level mass brand they always tend to draw from the mother brand imagery to draw credibility and market accessibility.
But this is really very interesting. I'll try to do some more research on the same and post an article about it.
Why not consider our own 'umble Indian context?
GM and MUL are often cited as the two manufacturers that started off at opposite ends of the value/image spectrum. Remember Opel Astra, Astra Club, Optra, and so on? Image, that rubs off rather well on the (erstwhile) Sail, Aveo, Spark, UVA - notice that the Opel badge was phased out in favour of the prestigious bow tie.
Now consider the pricing structure of the Baleno, and the genesis of the entire A category segment - right from the "dinky" 800 to the Alto (with Omni in between)
Incidentally, some brilliant advertising in both cases - Challni - Karva Chauth, Let's Go, and so on. (My own personal favourite, was the baseline - "for a special journey called Life")
The other interesting aspect is the fashion in which both positions impacted after sales, and availabilty of parts.
Not true, Roop.
Honda has a luxury brand called Acura. Even Mercedes launched their super-premium car Maybach without the benefit of the mother brand association.
As far as VW, Ford and GM are concerned they have had a different strategy. Instead of starting off new brands they have bought other brands and have held wide portfolios.
Ford has Aston Martin, Jaguar, Lincoln, Land Rover and Volvo. VW has Audi, Skoda (a brand they resurrected), Bentley and Bugatti. GM has always had a range of brands.
So the central point UberM is making that brands don't scale up as easily as they scale down, holds true.
True buy your point.
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