Toyota’s Scion Plans To Sell Fewer Cars

According to the author, the Scion brand it’s being such as a success brand that now the company is planning to have its own clothing line and its own music label. The brand is on track to beat its 150,000-car year sales goal by 25,000 vehicles in 2006, and Mr. Peterson has predicted a 250,000-car year sales if the brand keeps its advertisements the way it is now. The xA and xB have contributed to this success of the Scion.

The qualities of Scion’s vehicles that have contributed to the brand’s success are the interior, the CD audio system with 160 watts through six speakers and a mini-jack for the MP3 player, and WMA. Besides that, I think that other qualities include the sport looking of some of the vehicles inside and outside, exterior ground effects, choice of multiple accessories, and last but not least, you are able to configure your own Scion car the way you wand by visiting Scion’s website. Not only had the qualities of Scion’s vehicles contributed to the brand’s success, but its strategies too, such as whom to market, when to market and how to market. It is very important not only to predict the target size, but to know whom the market is going to be and when would be the best time to market.

Scion decided to suspend production of certain models. Based on what I read on the article, I think there are a couple reasons for the decision made by Toyota company. First, to make new models that are even more attractive to customer’s eyes, relying on the old models. Second, to create customer satisfaction and predict what customers might want their next Scion to be, something that differentiates the old models from the new ones. According to the author, Scion not only eliminated production, but also eliminated TV advertisement and dropped their presence from “My Space”. I think that one of the reasons they made this decision is because their goal to create awareness of the brand has being accomplished. Scion was concerned that people would get tired and bored with the brand if they hear too much about it or see it too much. Also, I don’t think Scion is too worried about dropping their presence from TV advertisements, “My Space” and any other type of media because they still rely on one of the most important strategy to create awareness, and that is word of mouth. And instead of “My Space”, Scion is concentrating in different social websites such as secondlife.com, which allows users to create a car culture on their own.

It is a great strategy to attract customers by allowing them to create their own car style. Scion is differentiating its self from other vehicle companies by allowing people to create their vehicle any way they want. In the other hand, I was surprised when I read that Scion wanted to do less advertisement so people don’t get bored of the brand. I thought that the more advertisement companies do, the more people know about the product, and the more people know about the product, the more they would buy, but this is not Scion’s case. Sometimes it is good to do different things so people don't get bore of the same things they see every day and everywhere they go. Being different is the key for any business who want to enter the doors of the success.

Source
Gina, Chon. " A Way Cool Strategy: Toyota's Scion Plans to Sell Fewer Cars. The Wall Street Journal