Launching an entirely new automotive brand is probably one
of the most daunting tasks in marketing. You have to establish a dealer
network, a parts supply chain and, when all that’s in place, you have to
convince people who are making perhaps their largest-ever purchase commitment
to buy a car that they’ve never heard of. Some brands have navigated this very
well, while others quickly became part of the automotive fossil record. Here
are some of our favorite successes and failures.
Best
MINI: Mini was almost a complete unknown in the U.S.
at the time of its 2002 launch, having not sold cars in the United States since
1967, the last year the original Mini Cooper S was available. Agency
Crispin Porter & Bogusky crafted a brilliant multi-pronged campaign
(including some remarkable guerilla marketing) around the “Let’s Motor” tagline
that was the best stuff seen in the automotive space since Doyle Dane
Bernbach’s seminal “Think Small” work for Volkswagen. It performed brilliantly.
MINI remains a much-admired and oft-imitated brand. While the jury is still out
on Fiat’s launch, MINI’s all-encompassing and all-conquering creativity made
them a tough act to follow.
Hyundai: Hyundai was far from the instant success
that marked MINI’s launch. The first cars they sold in the U.S. were boxy, slow
and smelled funny, and about 98 percent of Americans mispronounced their name.
South Korea was also a country with zero car-making credibility in the U.S.
Advertising keyed in on the fact that they were cheap ($5,499 in 1986 with
clever headlines like “Debt End”), but a then-astounding 36-month, 36,000-mile
bumper-to-bumper warranty sealed the deal for many Americans who rolled the
dice on a new Hyundai. The cars got progressively better and Hyundai thrived to
the point where many established Japanese brands are now scared to death of
them.
Worst
Daewoo: If Hyundai took very few missteps on their road to success, another South Korean brand, Daewoo, did nothing but snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Ham-fisted, not remotely credible ad campaigns compared new Daewoos to premium German brands. And then there were the model names: Lanos, Nubira and Leganza. Enough said. Daewoo lasted a lunchtime in the U.S.
Daihatsu: Prior to Suzuki, Daihatsu was the only
modern Japanese automotive brand to fail in the U.S.
While MINI managed to
survive and thrive on a limited model lineup for quite some time, it had an
enormous cool factor to ride on. Not so for Daihatsu, with the mini-SUV Rocky
and the subcompact Charade, an uninspired car with a name synonymous to many
Americans with either the most annoyingly dreaded party game on the planet or a
joke or sham. Daihatsu was doomed to a short four-year (1988-92) life in the
U.S.
Chevrolet Silverado Sugarland
Kia Cadenza Houston
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