I am not a car buff, find cars ads to be some of the most boring on television and could not have an intelligent discussion about how to fix any part of a car except maybe the ash tray. However, I am totally fascinated by the advertising and website for Scion. I am so intrigued by what they are doing that I teach it as part of my entrepreneurship course. My observations follow:
- Individuality and the ability to express yourself is becoming increasingly important as a product feature. Web 2.0 makes it so much easier to generate and distribute content, photos, music etc.that we are starting to expect the ability to customize and express our personal views about everything. What Toyota has done with Scion is to encourage the customization of the cars as an expression of individuality and then to promote the individuality of their owners as a way to attract new car buyers. Powerful stuff! (See picture below post.)
- Driven by the theme of fostering individuality, Scion provides a website that glorifies the individuality of their owners--uploaded photos of your car, wish lists for your Scion and the ability to custom design your car on the website. While none of these features are novel, the way they enhance your Scion ownership experience has a richness about it that is rare in product websites and especially in the auto industry. Rather than looking like the typical laundry list of Web 2.0 tools, Scion has integrated the site features in a way that the experience rather than the features are what you notice.
- Individuality is probably meaningless if you can not express yourself and communicate with others (such as the product manufacturer). The Scion site offers all the various methods--chat, rss feeds, forums and a members section. However the site visitor wants to communicate with other Scion owners or Toyota, the technology is there and, of course, Toyota gets to use all this data.
- The website provides a post-sale experience that is an integrated part of the customer value proposition. One of the great features of Web 2.0 is that it makes establishing a post-sale relationship with the customer so easy. Customers are increasingly coming to expect such a post-sale relationship both with product providers and other users.
In summary, I like Scion because it captures the theme of individuality, their website encourages further individuality and the website provides a rich post-sale customer experience. These are all trends that we will see a lot more of over the next five years. The good news is that Scion is such an excellent example.
From Third Way blog
You Tube ads for Scion and owner tributes are here.
