Every day we read about how Detroit auto manufacturers are going to the government and asking for a tax payer bailout to support their years of waste, non-innovation, and inefficient manufacturing. Yet Detroit’s competitors for years have innovated, and adapted their manufacturing models for the change in consumer preferences and global economies. Toyota spends over $1M a day on R&D and has only 1500 dealerships in the US compared with 15,000 for GM. It’s no wonder they lead the new hybrid charge with their Prius model, as Detroit is rushing to retool its SUV factories to build hybrids.
In this economic time of challenges I saw another automotive innovation coming from somewhere other than Detroit. It was a marketing innovation, from Hyundai. Hyundai’s offer is simple: “Buy our car and if you lose your income within one year we will take it back from you”. Their tag-“We will see the tough times through together.”
What a great way to build brand affinity with your target audience, an audience who is a little bit scared to buy your product right now because jobs are drying up left and right. What a great, yet simple marketing innovation to spur demand, and to communicate to your target market that as a company Hyundai gets it.
This is the type of basic marketing 101 that Detroit has failed at for so long, and why Detroit is now going to the tax payer for a bailout. What scares me more is that Congress may actually mandate what Detroit builds. Talk about the blind leading the blind. Nuff Said.
It would be interesting to understand the decision-making in this one. It is a classic case of a marketing campaign with both a brand-building (Hyundai as a company that understands the avverage consumer's plight), and a call to action (the offer) component. Analyze the offer in too much detail and you could get very gun shy about the campaign (huge risk), but the brand aspects of the campaign will be huge for them.
It would be interesting to know whether this type of campaign was considered and rejected by any of the big 3.
Posted by: Steven Woods | January 04, 2009 at 07:57 PM
Good question Steve
Posted by: ed | January 07, 2009 at 09:59 AM