| You can't help but admire a company
like Toyota. Back in the late 80s, it needed to capitalise on the growing
American luxury car buyer, so Lexus was created to steal potential Mercedes
and BMW customers. The brand has been a huge success, outselling the Germans
within the first two years of launch. Fast forward to 2002, and the carmaker
has invented yet another brand to specifically target the 'youth' market
in the US, amongst which Toyota popularity is at an all time low.
The Scion family from left
to right: xA, xB and tC |
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The Scion brand is targeted at what Toyota calls generation "Y",
or simply Gen Y who were born between 1980 and 1994 and will by 2010,
account for roughly 25 per cent of the US light vehicle market. By 2020,
these guys will dominate as much as 40 per cent of sales, resulting in
what Toyota has calculated to be 6.5 million units in a 16-million-unit
market.
Scion hopes to target 15 per cent of Gen Y, which accounts to roughly
10 million consumers by 2010, who have been hand picked as the 'trendsetters'.
"They are the influencers within this generation," explains
Brian Bolain, national sales promotions manager for the brand. Most importantly
this group is open to new ideas and what they seal with approval, sticks.
The Toyota and Lexus brands will approach the other 85 per cent.
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What's also fascinating about Scion is the unorthodox way the cars are
being promoted. The brand is seldom advertised in mainstream newspapers
or car magazines instead they are secretly brought to trendy venues or
are subtly mentioned in the editorial pages of hip lifestyle magazines.
"This would have normally been hard to do, but since we have integrated
ourselves in the music industry, we have a natural connection," says
Bolain.
He is referring to Scion's sponsorship of DJ and MC (master-of ceremonies)
competition, and more importantly its own music label, Scion A/V (Audio
Visual). "We help promote independent artists and we host about 75
types of events across the US each month," he boasts. "It's
a really grass route method that integrates Scion into people's lives
in a non-automotive way. It plants the brand name," he adds. Other
industries have been doing this kind of marketing for years, and Bolain
admits that the auto world is on a learning curb.
Scion means "descendant" or "heir to", although this
hardly relates to the cars. There are three production cars available
-- the xA, xB and a more up-market tC launched in June 2003 and 2004 --
and a concept vision named t2B was unveiled at the New York Show in March.
It doesn't really matter what the cars look like. The xA, xB and tC are
mono-spec vehicles, with frontal and seat-mounted side and front and rear
side curtain airbags for xA and tC as the only factory option. So that
the customer must only make a few key choices when purchasing a Scion:
model, transmission, colour and accessories. The selling point is that
they can be personalised using a choice of around 40 accessories and options
available with warranty from Toyota dealers who can install it all overnight.
In other words you can be all 'individual' without taking too many risks.
For now, Scion's design process is shared across Toyota's design studios
in Japan, Europe and the US. Currently the xA and xB are built at the
Takaoka plant and the tC at the Tsutsumi plant in Japan, although Toyota
is always looking for local production opportunities.
The cars were inspired by the Japanese BB, which has a similar customer
base in Japan. In fact much of the ideas behind Scion seem to have been
imported from Japan where there is a culture amongst the trendy youth
to personalise their cars to add their individual touch. Bolain doesn't
necessarily agree with this, but admits: "We evolved what Japan started
to a much greater degree," he admits.
"When we created the line-up we wanted to have our version of the
saloon, our version of the coupé and our vision of some sort of
utility vehicle," says Bolain. Therefore the xA is a take on a 5-door
saloon, the xB has all kinds of utility functions but it is not necessarily
a SUV and the tC is almost a luxury car but at a very low level.
The question now for Scion is does to evolve the brand. Does it offer
more products or does it let Toyota and Lexus provide for the second stage?
The company is thinking along the lines of 'Perhaps these folks will then
grow-up into Toyotas and Lexus cars'. "I think we have to examine
that opportunity right now," admits Bolain. Over 110,000 cars have
been sold since launch amongst these 84 per cent had no Toyota experience.
"It almost doesn't matter which brand they land in, it's all business
for the corporation, that's the real key."
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