The “It” Car for Gen Y In 2003 Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. introduced a completely new brand Scion into the market. The newest line of vehicles is aimed to target Generation Y drivers, people born after 1977. In order to succeed with Scions marketing and advertising campaign, Toyota Motors had to develop an entirely new conceptual car and to utilize a completely new approach to vehicle sales. The paper dwells on peculiarities of Scion, the It car for Generation Y and examines the elements of societal marketing, such as Product, Pricing, Positioning and Advertising. Product Scion embraces three key features: versatility, style and surprise.
The vehicle is expressive, but subtle. There are many combinations of cargo and passenger configurations. Finally, concept of surprise is seen in the high-quality materials and the long list of standard equipment in both the xA and xB (Scion Announces Prices for xA and xB, 2003).
Scion offers the customers about 40 accessories for each Scion model. The buyers are proposed to choose from a wide range of underhood, convenience and appearance items. By doing this, Scion brings a build-to-order process to the buyer.
There are only three models the stubby xA sedan, the racy tC coupe, and the bizarre xB (Woodyard, 2005).
As far as Toyota realizes that the young drivers will soon grow out of the young brand, the company undertakes the effort to establish cradle-to-grave buyer loyalty (Woodyard, 2005) to Toyota vehicles. Pricing As far as Scion targets young buyers, the car is not very expensive. Compared to a similarly equipped Ford Focus (priced at about $17,700 with manual transmission but sold for approximately $16,000 with numerous discounts), Scions prices are relatively low (Healey, 2004).
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For example, the tC is offered as moderate price of $16,464 with manual transmission, and $17,265 with automatic shift. However, the discounts make the price even more attractive.
Positioning Scion was created as a separate brand for driving-age youths. The vehicle was designed to be urban, edgy and underground (Woodyard, 2005).
The company stakes on the fact that generation Y is different from other generations. First of all, young people are richer (the vast majority have credit cards and spend more money than their parents, when they were young), they strive for luxury, however, it they cant afford luxury, theyll take luxury touches (Woodyard, 2005).
In such a way, Scion was positioned as a luxury touch for the younger people who aspire to luxury. Secondly, the car is positioned as the way of self-expression and self-actualization (individualistic vehicle).
As far as the new vehicle was advertised on www, the car was introduced as a web-savvy. Woodyard (2005) notes that 2/3 of the young consumers configure their Scion with the options they want and the colors on Toyotas website prior to walking into the dealership. Advertising The advertising campaign is also completely different from those of Scions competitors. The company decided to drop out the traditional TV and media advertising, since Generation Y is not likely to consume the TV commercials and media as elder generations do. Scion undertakes no surfing, volleyball or snowboarding sponsorships, because it bucks the urban, multicultural feeling that Scion is trying to project (Woodyard, 2005).
Approximately 27% of the young buyers are minorities. Scions advertising campaign utilized a traveling art shows representing the works of well-known youth-oriented artists, like Stay High 149, Buff Monster, etc.
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The management of the company considered that their informal approach will help the younger drivers to make their choice in favor Scion. The Scion advertising also embraces music by developing an alternative record label and taking part in festivals of cars and music (e.g. Hot Import Nights).
Bibliography Healey, J. (2004, May 27).
Scion’s peppy tC has right image at the right price. Retrieved April 1, 2007, from USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/healey /2004-05-27-tc_x.htm Scion Announces Prices for xA and xB.
(2003, March 24).
Retrieved April 1, 2007, from http://www.motortrend.com/features/auto_news/112_n ews030324_scion Woodyard, C. (2005, May 2).
Outside-the-box Scion scores with young drivers . Retrieved April 1, 2007, from http://www.southalabama.edu/mcob/mmenon/articles/s egmentation_Toyota_Scion_GenY.pdf.
