Professor Elam

MY Oct 31 post mentioned the Ferrari strategy of limiting production to just seventeen cars a day, the waiting lines just get longer. Now Toyota has decided to do the same thing with its Scion Brand.  Devised as a car to appeal to younger buyers, it has been a smash hit.  The article on page B1 of Nov 10 WSJ details that they are moving the marketing focus from MYSpace to Secondlife.com, Myspace is seen as too mainstream.  Another company with this strategy has  been Harley Davidson.  But having trounced Henderson and Indian as imitators, it is full speed ahead with production there these days.

Interestingly  Scion  has its own website, it is not listed on the toyota website.  Clearly Toyota has gone the extra mile to disassociate it from products that we, ahem, older folks, might by.  Click on the link and note the exclusive use of younger models in the ads, no accident that.

My point is that there are many paths to success but nothing succeeds like the allure of exclusivity.  And so the Scion will focus on production and sales of about  150,00 vehicles next year.  Gee GM and Ford should have such problems.  Nothing makes the point about the difference in Toyota and GM Ford better than this example.  One is limiting output, the others are closing plants and paying workers to quit. 

DLE