Why The Big 3 Failed
Posted in Blunders and Fail, Branding, Failures on May 29th, 2009 by admin – Be the first to comment Tags: automotive failure, big three, brand identity, Branding, brands, chrysler, fail, failure, ford, gm
There’s a lot of reasons why the big 3 failed, pundits will argue that it’s the UAW union, management or the dealers or that they are spread too thin into the verticals from financing to steel mills. The biggest reason put out there is that they simply aren’t building cars people want.
Ultimately there’s always one reason that carries the most weight when pinpointing a given failure. Most will agree that GM, Ford and Chrysler failed because “they aren’t building products that consumers want“.
To back this up, all one needs to do is look at the biggest losing cars ever.
1990-Present
- 1995 Ford Explorer
- 1997 GM EV1
- 1997 Plymouth Prowler
- 1998 Fiat Multipla
- 2000 Ford Excursion
- 2001 Jaguar X-Type
- 2001 Pontiac Aztek
- 2002 BMW 7-series
- 2003 Hummer H2
- 2004 Chevy SSR
The difference can be summed up in one word… BRANDING!
People want to drink coffee from white plastic lidded cups with a circular green logo on it. People want to listen to their music from white ear bud iPods, check their emails with Blackberrys. The world of consumerism is all about branding, and there’s no more importance in branding than a car.
A car is an ultimate representation of who you are, who you think you are, or who you want to be. And it goes a little something like this:
I’m conservative and safety consciences = Volvo. I’m rich and into Luxury = Mercedes. I’m well off and into Performance and Luxury = BMW. I’m doing alright and into performance, luxury and value = Audi. I’m a family oriented person into simple quality engineering = VW. I into precision engineering, luxury and value = Lexus. I’m all about high quality and high value = Honda and Toyota. I have more money than the baby Jesus = Lamborghini.
Now, lets look at what the American automotive brands represent:
I live in the ghetto but wanna come across as fly with deep pockets: Cadillac. I want something parked on the front lawn of my doublewide trailer jacked up with one wheel missing: Pontiac. I want a cheap car that looks like an expensive European car, or even a Bentley: Chrysler. I want a car that looks and drives like a cheap rental car: Most other American cars.
The Big 3 can not simply create cars people want to drive, because they killed their brand. Nobody wants to drive garbage, and for far too many people, the Big 3′s brand stands for garbage. This should be written in history books for what it is, brand failure.
But there is hope on the horizon for the American automotive sector.
