Tag Archives: Toyota

Automotive News Europe Congress: why brand, Barcelona and Amazon matter

Automotive, Brands, Cars, mobility, , , , , , , ,

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The big issues facing the automotive industry were all there at last week’s 20th Automotive News Europe Congress Barcelona. But the order of importance is shifting.

Connectivity was the headline act. LYNK & CO’s Alain Visser made sure of that with a punchy presentation to open the event (see previous blog piece, LYNK & CO goes back to the future). Integrated mobility, and how connectivity can facilitate its provision, was a strong support act. Electrification in the form of plug-in vehicles was pushed from centre stage though: as Luca de Meo, President of event host SEAT said, EVs won’t take over until the range is better, charging takes the same time as filling a fuel tank, and the cost of ownership is reduced. And autonomy? That was just a cameo. Toyota’s Executive VP Didier Leroy, the most senior non-Japanese in Toyota Motor Corporation, said autonomous vehicles will become a norm only when an accident-free society has been achieved.

But above all these came the overriding matter of brand. Why? As everyone agreed, the carmakers are under threat. They don’t want to become merely the hardware supplier in a society where the experience and the service are what consumers engage with and what creates affinity and loyalty. If they do, cars will be reduced to mere commodities.

So brands are more important than ever. Luca de Meo said as much in his event-closing presentation, declaring, “Brands have not disappeared – they are levers to respond to different customer demands and needs.”

This was fitting – he made a powerful and effective figurehead for the SEAT brand. He’s an appealing character, with a relaxed, modern delivery and a smartly pragmatic approach. He recognises SEAT’s weaknesses and limitations, acknowledging that if it were not for VW Group parentage the Spanish company wouldn’t have a future. Even with that ownership SEAT is anchored insecurely, positioned somewhere adrift Skoda and acting as a feeder for the other group brands.

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So, to give SEAT relevance, as well as pushing the inevitable SUVs he’s investing in the brand by understanding where its roots are and strengthening them. And not just its national roots. Where others are developing homogenised brands – Skoda isn’t Czech any more, and LYNK & CO emanates not from China or Sweden so much as cyberspace – de Meo is going in the other direction, reconnecting SEAT to its home city of Barcelona.

This is smart thinking, and not just because Barcelona is emerging as one of the world’s leading smart cities. A strong brand has to reflect a company’s culture, and Barcelona – a city renowned for independent thinking, creativity and a life-affirming sense of well-being – lends an authenticity the company has lacked in recent years, when it’s aspired to being a “fun” brand, an antidote to the rest of the VW Group, without substance.

Didier Leroy shared top billing with de Meo at the Congress. He was the only other speaker given slots on both days, and although he’s from a very different background and operates within a polar opposite culture he was a deeply impressive conduit for the Toyota brand. He gave persuasively different perspectives on Toyota’s perceived weaknesses – a corporate reticence, a go-it-alone mentality, a stubborn adherence to hybrid technology – and did it with humility, humour and effortless authority.

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Leroy didn’t understate the challenges facing the industry: he compared the extent to which Toyota is having to reinvent itself to what it faced when it went from making looms to producing cars in the 1930s. But he left the listener feeling that the business is as focused on the challenges, the real issues and the real way forward as any can be. He’s the public face the brand has never had.

In spite of the way Hyundai and Kia have been transformed by a car designer, Peter Schreyer, the appointment of Volvo designer Thomas Ingenlath as CEO of its newly reoriented Polestar EV offshoot and the ongoing use of Land Rover/Range Rover design boss Gerry McGovern as its brand face (“I am the custodian of the brand”, he said in his Congress presentation), this may be a moment when the executive-as-articulator-of-the-brand role swings back from car designer to boardroom leader.

Leroy made an interesting point that, contrary to the assertion that OEMs must not become just the hardware providers, in reality some may well have to. It’s just that Toyota won’t be one of them. So what are the non-carmaker business models he and his OEM counterparts are studying as they look out to the nearing horizon? Uber? Google? No – it’s Amazon.

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For OEMs that ecosystem has to have the provision of services at its heart, which requires a brand extension job. When consumers rent a car they choose a category and, possibly, a rental company. So if the OEMs want customers to choose their products in an emerging landscape where short-term use and sharing are the norm they will have to build and offer the service direct as well as through partners.

And that means investing in technical services and connectivity, which is why the latter is currently a bigger issue than electrification and automation. Customer engagement and ultimately profitability could well be defined by it, and strong brands will be the foundation of it.

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Automotive News Europe Congress – how are the industry’s leaders facing up to unprecedented change?

Automotive, Brands, Cars, , , , , , , , ,

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Four weeks today I’ll be at the Automotive News Europe Congress in Barcelona. It always attracts senior executives from across an ever-broadening industry, and now is a better time than ever to be part of it – the industry is on the cusp of dramatic structural and cultural upheaval.

POSCO_main_1300x550_170407The excellent speaker line-up reflects those changes. With SEAT, Lamborghini and Italdesign all on the speaker’s podium, VW Group is somewhat over-represented – that’s because SEAT’s the Host Sponsor, but it also means we get to hang out in Barcelona. And the line-up does reflect many of the changes facing the industry.

This is what I want to hear from them.

Luca de Meo – President, SEAT:

How is he intending to give Spain’s national brand sustainable relevance? They tried to become an Alfa-Romeo-esque sport-driven brand, and now they’re committing heavily to SUVs, but so has most of the competition already. Aren’t SEAT’s differentiators of small/compact cars and a weighting towards southern Europe also its weaknesses? How will SEAT integrate the VW brand’s surging EV technology into its own offering? And what’s the dynamic within the bulging VW group brand portfolio, especially the no-longer budget Skoda brand? As keynote speaker, de Meo’s positive claims for SEAT will be under close scrutiny.

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Brigitte Courtehoux – Head of Mobility Services, PSA:

More than one OEM has now publicly stated that they’re transitioning from manufacturer and retailer to mobility provider, but what’s the substance behind this? Nissan and Volvo have extensive ongoing consumer trials of autonomous vehicles; what is PSA doing? How is it approaching the potentially seismic consumer shift from purchase and conventional leasing to flexible and ultra short-term leasing, on-demand usage, and personal mobility platforms encompassing public transport, Uber and growing non-driver urban populations? And where does the Opel brand fit into this scenario?

Jim Farley – Executive Vice President, Global Markets, Ford:

With Mark Fields having vacated the top seat at Ford Motor Co this is interesting timing. Ford has lacked focus globally since Alan Mulally departed in 2014. In Europe the company has made money when others haven’t, and GM Europe has thrown in the towel. But Ford is still part of that squeezed middle – mainstream brands which cannot become premium but are not value brands or challengers. What is the global vision? The company could – should – be leading the world in mobility, just as it did with the Model T a century ago. And what is its future in a fracturing Europe? With profits in the region down could it even follow GM to the exit door? Farley, newly promoted to a global role but with European oversight, is touted as a future global Ford chief so his view will be fascinating.

Didier Leroy – Executive VP, Chief Competitive Officer & President, Business Planning & Operation, Toyota Motor:

Toyota’s first foreign executive VP, Leroy provides a uniquely European focus for the Japanese giant. From a European point of view Toyota is nowhere near its global standing – 10th in volume terms, behind Skoda – and Lexus has simply never taken off. Globally it has never owned the EV and hybrid territory the way it should have done as the pioneer, which has clouded its brand purpose and allowed the likes of Skoda, Hyundai and Kia to steal hard-earned European market share, and the current uncertain next-generation technology strategy isn’t helping. Now there’s a global profits crisis, so how will this affect Europe operations? The man with the longest job title in the industry in uniquely placed to make the company’s case.

Hakan Samuelsson – President & CEO, Volvo Car:

As a challenger brand Volvo has the agility to reinvent itself and shift to meet changing market needs. And, sure enough, it has just announced that it will stop making diesels altogether, admitting that meeting emissions targets is too expensive. Other than VW’s virtue-out-of-necessity move to EVs, the bigger players have too much invested in existing technologies to be as bold, but Volvo’s move to EV and hybrid power brings the tipping point into view. The company is also at the forefront of automation, with its brand imperative of safety meaning that Volvo automation systems will effectively become the industry benchmark. Can this small OEM be the catalyst to both the demise of the internal combustion engine and the mass adoption of automated cars?

Alain Visser – Senior VP, LYNK & CO:

As the face of LYNK & CO, Alain Visser is fronting a company embodying many of the challengers facing existing OEMs. It’s not only offering cars designed for electric powertrains and connectivity, it’s challenging the whole existing business model by designing one around emerging market expectations. Direct, online sales, fixed pricing, home delivery and a subscription model for the app generation. “The word doesn’t need another car brand,”, Visser said. No existing OEM would establish itself now using the archaic distribution models they’re tied to, but LYNK & CO is part of Geely and was dreamed up at Volvo labs, so can the company make it work and head off the Teslas, Ubers and as-yet-unknown disruptors who come in totally fresh, with no automotive background?

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Hildegard Wortmann – Senior VP, Brand, BMW:

For me BMW is in some ways the most interesting OEM represented in the speaker line-up. Recently replaced by a resurgent Mercedes as the number one premium brand globally, it has lost its way a little: a commoditised 3-Series, bland and questionable styling, not enough true SUVs, an i-Series low-emissions sub-brand which has stagnated with just two, polarised products book-ending a product void. And now it faces a fundamental challenge to its very purpose – the Ultimate Driving Machine – in the shape of automated mobility. What will BMW’s place be in the future automotive landscape, and how will it get there? As the brand chief, Wortmann should provide a clear insight.

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I’m a little biased as I worked with ANE for several years in the 2000s, partly on this event, but for me the Congress is the best automotive trade event in Europe. Readers wanting to register can get a €100 discount by visiting the link below and quoting the code LONGSHORE. It can be used for either the Congress/Rising Stars combo or the Congress only.

Hope to see you there.

https://www.regonline.com/registration/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1934274 

Volkswagen group not profiting from its brands’ equity

Brands, Cars, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

_origin_Fakti-kas-tevi-parsteigs-9Martin Winterkorn, boss of Volkswagen Group, admitted this month that the business “urgently” needs better profits, and today’s half-year results announcement confirmed falls in both profits and sales. This is the company, remember, which has targeted global number one status by 2018, and since Winterkorn became CEO in 2007 CEO has increased production by 4m units and doubled its revenues.

One of the reasons for VW’s poor profitability is that it isn’t global in terms of geographical spread. It’s in the key growth market, China, but is actually over-dependent on it, whereas it has little traction in south and south-east Asia. And market share is relatively low in the USA, with the VW brand on the slide. Another factor is that VW is light on compact SUVs, the biggest growth segment globally. A further reason and perhaps the most significant is its sheer size – a company this big simply can’t avoid inefficiencies.

But here’s the elephant in the boardroom: VW’s problem is also down to brands. VW group isn’t merely huge; it has a huge brand portfolio, with 12 brands in total – stretching to trucks and motorbikes – and over 310 models. Paradoxically, rather than providing economies of scale, in the accumulation of brands the collective mass has outweighed the ability to exploit the efficiencies.

By 2007 it already had the considerable challenge of consolidating and managing a passenger car portfolio of SEAT, Skoda, VW, Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti. Each was struggling for both individual relevance and group synergy. Skoda had already begun to produce cars in the VW brand’s space. VW in turn was encroaching on Audi, which was moving onto mainstream segments previously the preserve of these brands while simultaneously launching de-facto Lamborghinis. Bentley was doing a fine job. Bugatti was, well, Bugatti, and SEAT was struggling not to be a Spain-only brand and was being jumped by Skoda. The group was competing with itself, and the mainstream brands were sharing the same market space but without sharing the economic benefits. And meanwhile the world was plunging into an economic downturn.

So what did VW do? Since Martin Winterkorn’s 2007 accession it’s added four more brands: Porsche, Ducati, MAN and Scania. It has also become the largest stakeholder in Suzuki and even consumed the design house Italdesign Giugiaro. And Skoda has stated that it wants to sell on quality and style, while Lamborghini and Bentley have announced SUVs.

VW’s strategy goes directly against the new automotive industry paradigm. Toyota has continued to excel in financial performance. It has not acquired other makes but concentrated on its core brand, which has maintains clear values, and its own premium-luxury brand, Lexus. Hyundai, which led even Toyota on profitability in 2013, was forced into a merger of unequals with Kia when the South Korean business bubble burst in the late 1990s. They produce cars for the same market segments, yet with only two brands they’ve not only managed the situation by differentiating the brands but have grown stratospherically since 2007. Meanwhile Ford has divested itself of Aston Martin, Volvo, Jaguar and Land Rover, and is emerging strongly under the ‘One Ford’ mantra. GM is now doing the same in Europe, discarding Chevrolet to concentrate on Opel/Vauxhall. And VW’s German rival BMW has limited its acquisition trail to the very distinct Rolls-Royce and Mini brands and retained the BMW group values across its portfolio.

They’ve all benefitted from a focus on a single brand or a primary and secondary brands. It’s very hard for Volkswagen group to do the same. The VW range’s own brand is still strong in spite of becoming part of the uncomfortable brand portfolio dynamic. But the group’s brand is infinitely less than the sum of its parts. It’s impossible to say what it stands for in the way that you can about its volume peers Toyota and Ford.

That VW’s profits are suffering is not surprising. That’s what happens when a goal defined by volumes is set. If the goal were instead to define and differentiate the brands more clearly, with each given the objective of becoming the most desired among consumers, then the volumes would follow. They would do so more slowly but they would do it sustainably.

Toyota – 7m hybrids should make more noise

Brands, Cars, Electric vehicles, , ,

Toyota_celebrates_100_000_UK_hybrid_sales_Toyota_54952Toyota tells us it has just clocked up 100,000 hybrids in the UK market, almost 14 years after the first Prius went on sale. Not a huge tally if we’re honest. But Toyota was way ahead of the game back then, and globally it’s now nudging seven million hybrid sales.

That is impressive, because by my calculation it equates to savings of around 47 million tonnes of CO2 and 16.5 billion litres of fuel. And as the company is currently selling 1 million hybrids annually and launching around a dozen more hybrid models by next year, the numbers are accelerating.

But Toyota didn’t give us those stats, which is a pity because it’s a great story. And also because it’s in danger of losing the high ground to noisier companies which are newer on the scene and happy to motor down a hybrid highway paved by the Japanese giant.

Electric vehicles are now firmly in the mainstream, even if they’re not selling in truly large numbers yet. Every manufacturer has an EV of some sort. BMW has moved the game on for EVs with its cool and urban i3. Toyota’s rival for the global no 1 car group, VW, has finally launched its first EVs. And both are offering battery-only products.

But hybrids are the way forward for mass adoption of electric vehicles. The hybrid drivetrain, previously regarded as a slightly clumsy compromise, is now seen as the bridge to fully electric motoring the world isn’t yet ready for. And Toyota’s first-mover status should mean that it owns that space.

It still can. Hybrid technology is finding its way into luxury brands; even Formula 1 has gone hybrid. This is transforming favourability among prospective hybrid car buyers which Toyota, with a large existing hybrid customer base – unlike its competitors – can exploit.

The next few years should be Toyota’s. But it will need to invest in its brand and marketing as much as in its R&D if it’s to hold the high ground it’s already taken technologically.

Geneva brand digest #2: Toyota Aygo, Citroen C1, Peugeot 108 – small cars talking big

Brands, Cars, Design, Motor shows, , , ,

The Geneva launch of the three mini cars jointly developed for Toyota and PSA Peugeot-Citroen was interesting not just to see how they’ve differentiated them in styling terms. Their execution tells us a lot about the brands whose badges they wear.

They may be diminutive, low-priced and low-profit products, but they’re a valuable entry point for new, younger buyers, offering the opportunity to grab customers at the base of their car-buying curves.

images-10So much so that Toyota’s version, the Aygo, is intended to be a halo car for the brand. It effectively spearheads a new Toyota brand message of Fun, but it also spells out a new daring in the company. The Aygo is certainly the most distinctive of the trio. Sharp-edged, geometric feature lines come together in an X-shaped front-end graphic extending from the bottom corners of the nose right up to the wing mirrors, and along with some other plastic parts it can be chosen in a range of colours. This is Toyota trying so hard to break out of the rut of bland, commoditised design that it’s willing to engage in jeopardy – witness the Go Fun Yourself strapline used on the Geneva stand – and even risk alienating some buyers. It’s something the company can’t do in a single move with staple volume sellers like the Auris and Avensis. But if the Aygo’s a success it will allow Toyota to progressively introduce more risky design.

images-11Citroen is in almost the opposite situation. Launching its cartoony C4 Cactus concept-car-for-the-road at the same time, its C1 alternative to the Aygo inevitably doesn’t have the same halo mission. As a result it lacks the confidence of the Toyota and the coherence of the Peugeot’s version, the 108. Citroen has a wonderful brand heritage of free-thinking innovation, idiosyncrasy and design flourishes, which it’s redeployed in the Cactus and the DS ranges. But it also has to market pain-et-beurre cars, and to do so cheaply to make them attractive. The C1 is symptomatic of this split personality, its front end a confusing mash-up of cutesy oversized lamps and Citroen’s new signature slim headlamps.

Peugeot_108_GenevaThe Peugeot 108 may be more conventional but it’s more successful. Peugeot has a new-found confidence, with good design and excellent quality now extending across a young vehicle range, so it’s transplanted those values into the 108. It wants to be taken seriously so has used the car to give us a large-car-in-a-small-car package, with plenty of options focused on luxury and technology, giving a visceral quality to a sophisticated-looking city vehicle.

These three cars are being produced in the same factory but despite fundamentally being one vehicle they’re remarkably distinct. The Toyota and the Peugeot, however, share something which elevates them – they project a clarity of purpose and a fit with a wider corporate vision. In brand terms, that’s essential.

Recovery gets real at the Geneva motor show

Cars, Motor shows, , , , , ,

genevaWith the glitter of last week’s Geneva show’s press day reveals having been swept away and the dry ice cleared, now’s a good time to reflect on the what it meant for the business.

The Geneva show always provides an annual shot in the arm for the motor industry. It’s at the start of spring, in a bubble of snow-capped mountains and clean air, with the God Particle leaving nearby. Switzerland has no OEMs so it’s neutral – no Frankfurt or Paris-style shows of national strength. And it allows the niche producers to sit among the big players in the main halls, so exotica and design are as prominent as commoditised volume cars. It’s a good place to be, even in a post-recession landscape.

But, ironically in a market showing the first signs of sustainable recovery, this year the event came with an unusually large dose of reality. It’s as though the industry doesn’t want to push its luck, to be distracted from a hard focus on that recovery. Which is hardly surprising: in spite of five consecutive months of growth in Europe, sales are still a very long way off pre-recession levels – three million units in fact. Almost all of the OEMs are losing money in Europe, and incoming PSA CEO Carlos Tavares was quoted in Geneva saying that making money hasn’t been part of its culture, and neither was it at his previous employer, Renault.

So it was appropriate that many of the key press day launches were focused on the more fertile market opportunities. But that paradoxically comes with some challenges – for both bottom lines and brands.

Renault_TwingoThe rash of new city cars from Toyota, Peugeot, Citroen and Renault will deliver volumes. They’re cars for our time – cheap, urban cars with an injection of fashion, fun and flair. But small cars and small price tags also offer small margins, especially when they have the quality demanded by downsizers and the Apple generation. The development cost-sharing for the Toyota Aygo, Peugeot 108 and Citroen C1 will have helped, as will the Renault’s Twingo’s joint development with Daimler’s next-generation Smart. But these are not the cars those companies really want to be shifting. They’re cars for the marketers, not the FDs, better for long-term customer acquisition and upselling than short-term profits.

BMW_2_Series_Active_Tourer_at_the_2014_Geneva_Motor_Show_BMW_52185BMW’s 2-Series Active Tourer has properly given its brand and marketing people something to think about. It’s two things a BMW has never been before: front-wheel drive and a family MPV – in effect, an aspirational Kia Carens. Mercedes-Benz has trodden the MPV path already with the A-Class, and has reverted from a clever, one-box design to a conventional hatchback. The B-Class has retained the one-box shape, but Mercedes makes vans; BMW makes the Ultimate Driving Machine.

However, BMW’s strategy is conservative compared with what led to the Geneva debut of the Porsche Macan compact SUV. Barely a decade ago, ‘Porsche’ and an ‘SUV’ didn’t belong in the same garage, let alone the same sentence. Now, thanks to the Cayenne, they’re synonymous, and over half of Porches are front-engined and four-wheel drive. The SUV may have saved Porsche but the company made the SUV a global phenomenon.

I’m not sure BMW will be hoping that it does the same for the front-wheel drive people carrier. It’s brand people may have to be as clever as its engineers over the coming years.

Frankfurt reflection #3: Toyota – market leaders playing catch-up

Cars, , , , , , ,

The Frankfurt show was the moment when electric vehicles not only moved into the mainstream of the displays, but when they became the stars. Everyone had some kind of EV to show, and it was clear that the technology can be used equally well for economy and performance. BMW covered both angles by using the i3 as shuttles displaying and its production i8 big brother, which has been conceived around the performance and handling advantages of electric motors. A big slam dunk for the Germans.

Frankfurt - YarisAll of which was bad news for Toyota. Its Prius pioneered hybrids, which most people agree present the immediate way forward for EV technology, but it does not enjoy the recognition it deserves. The stats are remarkable: 5.5m Toyota and Lexus hybrids sold to date, resulting in savings of 37m tonnes of CO2 and 13bn litres of fuel. It’s now selling 1m hybrids a year and will launch 15 new hybrid models by 2015, so the stats will accelerate.

So Toyota owns this territory, yet it’s playing PR catch-up with companies whose EVs have only recently begun to surface – not just BMW but VW, Mercedes, Renault and others. I was in PR at Toyota in the 1990s and was constantly frustrated at the lack of recognition in Japan of valuable brand messages, how easy it was to uncover PR nuggets yet how difficult it was to use them.

In Frankfurt Toyota showed a high-performance hybrid concept of its Yaris supermini and gave its entire stand over to hybrids. The next few years belong to Toyota, but it will need to give its PR and marketing people as much credibility as its engineers if it is to take the high ground it’s already scaled in technical terms.

Toyota to lose no 1 spot but become sexy

Cars, , , , ,

gt86-exterior-8-1It’s been easy to overlook Toyota over the past few years.

Volkswagen is relentlessly pursuing the world number one spot. Hyundai and Kia are doing a convincing job in Europe of owning the Asian quality/value space Toyota occupied by default not long ago. The market is moving away from the traditional product segments at Toyota’s core: Nissan took the lead with the Qashqai crossover, and premium brands have come conquesting in these segments. And of course Toyota was hit hardest of all by the Japanese Tsunami, while high-profile recalls made customers question its quality and reliability – for many the reasons for buying a Toyota.

In Europe, sales fell by over 3% last year and by more than 8% in the first half of this year. But the company regained the top spot for global sales in 2012, has held on in the first half of this year, ahead of General Motors and Volkswagen Group, and its overseas sales have hit a record high. And remember that GM and VW have far more brands in their portfolios – in the latter case SEAT, Skoda, Audi, Porsche, Bentley, Lamborghini , Bugatti and MAN and Scania trucks in addition to the core VW brand. In comparison Toyota Motor Corporation has only the Toyota brand plus small contributions from Lexus, Daihatsu and Hino trucks. Toyota’s is a far more organic approach.

Toyota may well not hold off GM even to the end of this year, given the state of the Japanese market and a boycott of Japanese products in China following the territorial dispute in the East China Sea. But the company has woken up to the need for more appealing product. In Europe it has launched seven new variants or major variants in little more than 12 months, including the FT-86, an affordable halo car with real personality.

But most importantly, over the longer term, as Volkswagen’s acquisitive strategy and ambition inevitably pay off in volume terms and number one status, Toyota will be cashing in on its market leadership in low-carbon vehicles. Thanks to the Prius, it simply owns this space. And the hybrid drivetrain, previously regarded as a slightly clumsy compromise, is now seen as the bridge to the fully electric motoring the world isn’t yet ready for en masse. The arrival of the plug-in hybrid makes it more virtuous, while the adoption of hybrid technology by Ferrari and McLaren for their latest hypercars makes it sexy.

Scroll forward five years. Toyota number one? Unlikely. Toyota sexy? More likely than you’d imagine.