iPod Generation NOT “down” with British Auto Brands?
While reading an article from LeftLane News, we got quite a laugh after learning that many of America’s youth (the young-ish looking people with tattoos and iPods stuck to their ears) don’t recognize the Land Rover brand as British, nor do they recogize a competing brand, Lexus, as Japanese!
The article follows:
“58.4 percent of U.S. college students surveyed by Anderson Analytics believe Land Rover is an American brand. Only 18.5 percent of respondents correctly identified the marque as British.
About a third of those surveyed thought Lexus was an American company. Roughly the same number knew the luxury automaker was in fact Japanese. One can only wonder what small percentage of Americans actually realize Lexus is a Toyota-owned Japanese company.
Swedish automakers were also a source of much confusion. 49 percent of respondents said Volvo was German, and 40 percent thought Saab was, too. Roughly 15 percent of those queried correctly identified the two companies as originating from Sweden.
55.7 percent of students thought South Korean automaker Hyundai was Japanese. A nearly identical number of respondents also thought Korean electronics maker Samsung was also Japanese. Most students thought LG — also from Korea — was American.
Other non-automotive companies in the study include Nokia, which only 4.4 percent of respondents could identify as Finnish, and Lego, which most students think is American.
The survey sampled 1,000 U.S. College students at 375 universities during the fall-winter 2006 semester.”
We’re not sure what these kids are smoking. Obviously, Lexus and Land Rover do not specifically target youths, most of whom cannot afford to buy a luxury vehicle. It would seem to benefit Land Rover and Lexus to build a brand differentiation campaign, especially considering that Land Rover is currently owned by Ford’s Premier Auto Group. The whole brand “crisis” is vagugely reminiscent of the many Americans who still think BMW is an acronym for British Motor Works. UFF!!!