Brand Identity in the Automobile Industry: A Lesson from Toyota’s Transformation to Lexus

You know how you know when you’re driving the wrong car is if I ask you what car you driving you tell me the derivative not the brand so if I said what do you drive you drive G t you say I drive a G t 86 you don’t tell me I drive a Toyota coupe okay right okay because a person drives an Aston Martin doesn’t go out drive a D9 yeah or a vanquish yeah what do I drive I drive an Aston Martin I drive a Bentley get it I drive a Bentley now the problem with Toyota was they were making their cars in Japan exporting them to America for the American person or the average U. S person it was still a Toyota it represented reliability and quality but it it didn’t quite represent luxury and luxury one day they’re having a conversation about what are we gonna do with this problem and they thought the problem was about pricing and out of nowhere a little voice from the back said this is not a pricing problem it’s a brand problem so we should just rather than change the car just change the logo on the car okay and they go what do we call it and the answer was what is it it’s a luxury product what do we do we export it and to whom to the U. S they say so what is this thing it’s a luxury export to the U s Lexus.