I noticed, with great interest, a brief article on the Saturn brand’s “second coming,” in Sunday’s NY Times….
Early on in the 1990s, Saturn had been a shining example of transparent marketing to women. The no-dicker sticker they were known for tended to women’s ways of buying without thinking pink.
The tagline back then was “A Different Kind of Car Company,” and that definitely seemed in line with the community it built (where Saturn owners met up for weekends at the Spring Hill, TN, facilities to get to know the folks who put their cars together) and its emotion-filled ad campaigns (a dealer handing the key to a young, female, first-time car buyer, for one).
But, where did all that positive momentum go? According to the article, the assembly lines in Spring Hill are closing in March, due to this fact, among others: “The number of returning buyers fell to 27 percent by 2000, from 52 percent in the early 1990s.” Yikes.
Saturn fans originally flocked to the company (some despite its GM roots) to check out this “different kind of car company.” But, today Saturn is no longer independent of GM, which makes it a lot less “different.”
There is now a very big disconnect from its original independent, community-focused branding – and, women, who had been key Saturn customers, have serious radar for such inconsistency. Minor glitches in branding vs. experience continuity are one thing and can be forgiveable, but, over time, Saturn customers have seen nothing new and the company has become lax in maintaining connection with its initially very passionate customer base.
As Pat Fallon and Fred Senn write in their new book, Juicing the Orange (HBS Press, 2006):
“…GM and Saturn took a risk in basing their branding no on the car but on a radically re-thought relationship between buyers and dealers. This brand position required the total commitment of employees, dealers and salespeople (and they pulled it off gallantly), but we argue that the real risk would have been for GM to ignore the emotional truth that Riney’s [referring to the ad agency, Hal Riney] planners had uncovered.”
Fallon and Senn go on to mention how Saturn marketers neglected the advantage they had initially created… which leads us back to the NY Times article.
It’s too bad. I loved pointing to it as a great example of effective marketing to women that didn’t alienate men, and clearly all sorts of customers were ready for that different kind of car company (and still are!). But Saturn couldn’t live up to the expectations it created for itself.
The company is coming out with new models, hoping to regain the attention and loyalty of those people who originally loved the brand, without really liking the cars enough to repeat the purchase. Saturn’s tagline is now “Like always. Like never before,” and it will be interesting to see if car buyers… well, buy it!
Andrea,
Creating great experiences is terribly important to building customer loyalty and increased sales. However, the product, especially a car, has to represent a large percentage of the experience.
So if Saturn is easy and rewarding to buy, that’s good. But that is a short-term experience not to be repeated if the automobile disappoints.
andrea, this story of the saturn does remind me of the story of snapple. when the bigs get into a company, successful as it was snapple when bought by quaker, most of the time they believe that they are smart enough to make a profitable company even more profitable. as far as saturn was lived as a car not from gm, everything run rather well. as pointed by douglas atkin in his book the culting of brands, there was a community between the plant, the retailers and the customers ( the holy trinity, it’s douglas definition). when gm came back on the separated company to cash in and turn it in a gm style company, the story ended.
Andrea, thanks for posting on the Saturn story. You are asking great questions!
Part of the return buyer drop could be due to the fact that for 10 years Saturn essentially sold small cars only. At some point there was no “next model” for Saturn owners to buy. Families grow and need mid-size car solutions.
Another issue might be around “design sensibilities” which from my perspective was undervalued. (My kids hated having their first car be a Saturn – definitely not cool!)
But at the end of the day I wonder if GM simply “blinked” and reverted to business as usual.
Relationship building is slow. Moving product becomes more important than the “long view”. And the US car industry has long cared more about moving product than relationships. That’s why the manipulative sales model of the industry has long been a turn off for many women and men.
During my time at Saturn we use to say, “we are a 100 year old car company with 5 years of experience.” It was our way of remembering to value relationships and take the long view.
I wonder if they still say that?
I remember that campaign well. I had never had a new car and that one with the guy handing the girl the keys was very seductive to me. However, I thought there cars were hideous. So I never bought one. It’s funny that Saturn is trying to make a come back because it was about a year ago I noticed that no one has a Saturn anymore, at least not in Tucson. I did rent a car about 3 months ago and “they pick you up”…he did so in a luxury Saturn SUV. I must say it was nice. It had the design sensibilities that appealed to this mom. Of course my rental turned out to be a Toyota Sentra, which was surprisingly nice, but that’s another blog. Perhaps this new line will help them get the female buyer back? It will be interesting to see if the streets of Tucson start sporting more Saturns. If so it probably won’t be because of a healy feely experience, just a matter of taste.
Just a little follow up on Tammy’s observation.
At one time Saturn didn’t sell fleets to corporations or rental companies. The reason given for not doing this had to do with protecting the resale value of a Saturn. It made sense to me.
But then again maybe no one wanted a Saturn as a rental or a corporate fleet option.
Not sure what they do now.
Andrea,
I suspect that GM/Saturn did what so many companies do — they got bored with their own brand/marketing just about the time that their consumers were embracing it.
It seems as though in today’s “a 5 course meal in 7 minutes or less” world, we have less and less patience or resources with which to be patient.
You can’t build a brand in a day. And now they have a new problem. They told us who they were and then they changed. Why should we buy it this go around?
Best,
Drew
Yes.. it’s that choice between making a buzz/getting attention initially and then holding onto it (or bothering to follow through). The great “new” approaches in an industry have to be developed with the long term in mind – esp. in the auto industry, I’d think. Not sure the average number of years car buyers go between cars (I go forever between cars, myself…), but by only “trying” the community-approach for a few years, a lot of Saturn’s customers may have gone back to buy their next car and felt like the brand had basically disappeared. (It’s great to get some insider perspective here from Michael Wagner.)
The long view is the hardest view to take, but what if you did start to invest in your customers the way you wanted them to invest in your brand?
Thanks for all the input!
Andrea, I thought that this was a really great post, but the topic of Saturn brings to mind the idea of follow through.
Saturn built a great brand name, their advertising really worked. I bought a Saturn, my sister bought a Saturn, my mother bought a Saturn…..
However, everyone I know who bought a Saturn at the start of their marketing push had mechanical problems with the cars. Out of the 5 people (all women) that I know that bought Saturns, only one was happy with the car in the long term. The other four of us had repeated mechanical problems, and the salesmen might have been outstanding but the repairmen were like repair shops everywhere-which did not add into the Saturn image.
After my third oil leak (where the Saturn repairman told me I should call my father if I did not understand why I had to have more expensive repair work done-that’s not marketing to women…) I got rid of my Saturn, as did everyone else in my family after they had problems.
I will not buy another Saturn, no matter what marketing can turn their product into. I will still be afraid that I will have to pour thousands of dollars into repair.
So, I would like to say that the marketing only takes you so far…the quality of the product has to carry you the rest of the way. It was an outstanding marketing push, but the product was questionable and they did not follow through.
For those companies that have a successful marketing campaign that fizzles, I suggest that it might be time to look at the product as well as the marketing.
Just my two cents.
Thank you!
Andrea