Continued Idiocy
What kind of crazy fucked up world do we live in where the CAR companies are hipper than the record companies?
In yesterday’s "Wall Street Journal" it was reported that "Scion is discontinuing the six-CD-changer option in its models and moving to iPod connectivity instead."
You know the Scion, right? That box that drives down the boulevard next to you with the volume pumping out? As Jill Sobule told me, the one that looks like a TOASTER? One of the hippest automobiles on the road, and that’s not the only model in the line. And it’s not only youngsters buying them, even though Toyota, worried that their main brand was aging and kids no longer thought it was hip, established Scion to appeal to the younger demo. Oldsters LOVE the toaster, and buy it too. Do you think these oldsters buy CDs, never mind the YOUNGSTERS??
In an era when even CHEVROLET installs AUX inputs in their autos, allowing you to plug in your iPod, HOW FUCKING LONG DO YOU THINK THE CD HAS LEFT??
You remember the car companies. Still selling 8-tracks when the world had gone cassette. Still plying cassette decks when CDs ruled. Hell, even LEXUS was outfitting its cars with cassette decks in the early days of this century. But car companies can no longer sleep on their feet, they have to deliver what the public wants, or risk going out of business/bankruptcy, like Ford and GM. Or Tower Records. Or the record labels.
What the fuck happens when the CD expires, sooner rather than later, with all the indicators staring the industry in the face. Do you really think business will be replaced by sales at the iTunes Store? If so, you didn’t read the latest statistics, that despite iPods flying out the door, song downloads have FLATTENED!
And then there’s the strange case of the Mini. How BMW has managed to take a completely impractical automobile and have a raging success. What do they attribute this to? BRAND MANAGEMENT!
From today’s "New York Times":
"There was no national television advertising and the car was promoted primarily on the Internet, in ads painted on city buildings and on cards handed out at auto shows."
In other words, BMW/Mini made sure the car was COOL! Not seen as a mass market item, but a machine for hipsters. Instead of doing the saturation marketing of the record labels, imbuing the product with a stink that lasts forever, BMW/Mini entered public consciousness from the ground up, via alternative methods. And is there anybody who isn’t familiar with the brand? In other words, the campaign WORKED!
But it gets better. BMW/Mini limited sales to 25,000 a year. Toyota sold double this number of Camrys in September! Whereas Volkswagen sold 83,000 Beetles in 1999, and then sales tanked. A Beetle cool? COME ON!
Just because you can sell a ton now that doesn’t mean you SHOULD! Because the more you saturate the market, the shorter the shelf life of your product. You alienate early adopters. You end up with the lowest common denominator, the least hip people who follow a dead trend, causing the others to RUN! In other words, once your prepubescent little sister loves the act you’re DONE WITH IT!
BMW Has Maxi Expectations for Its Next, Slightly Larger Mini Cooper
