On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 7:29 PM, paul stenquist <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> >>>> To draw some parallels, Mini survives as a marketer of small cars, >>>> without having flagships. VW had it's best years when it stuck to a >>>> segment. You don''t have to be full range to sell successfully. What's >>>> more, APS-C will continue to improve. There will always be an upgrade >>>> path. FF isn't absolutely necessary in that regard. >> >> Mini is BMW's compact brand, as SMART is for Mercedes. Both survive by >> being a product, not a product line. VW is VW AG's budget brand in the >> west and needless to say they d best when not competing with >> themselves (IE the low-end of the Audi spectrum). >> >> > But Mini is a brand, and Mini buyers aren't BMW wannabes. Mini isn't marketed > as a small BMW. The 1 Series occupies that niche. > > Most car brands are owned by a parent company, but they are marketed > independently. In regard to VW, they were at their best when they produced > small cars only and were an independent brand. In any case, success in a > market segment is always possible. It's been proven many times in many > product categories. > Paul
But Mini doesn't care about the market past their niche, and doesn't need to because BMW covers the rest of the market for them. They're a product (with a couple variations), not a product line. essentially they're BMW's Hipster car, marketed to a segment that BMW can't market to otherwise because of their essential brand identity. And they're the real BMW small car in North America, not the 1 series (which is much more expensive and less practical). As to VW, they were at their most successful overall in their current form, during the 80's and 90's. When they did only small cars and were an inependant brand they pretty much drove themselves out of the market due to a lack of resources to develop competitive cars (they were stuck with a late 30's design until they bought Auto Union and got the Audi FWD technology). While the Beetle was very successful for a period, it nearly put VW out of business in the long run. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
