Scion- Youth brand of Toyota?
If you watch TV, you must have surely seen those futuristic and clearly trendy ads featuring a boxy automobile that changes colos and parts and colors before your very eyes. Clearly they must be marketing to the young 20 somethings who have a love for the Fast and the Furious life.
Scion comes about as Toyota’s attempt to shift the median age of its buyers down from current numbers which are somewhere over 50.
Why then is every Scion xA and xB I have ever seen driven by someone who is over the age of 35?
I know that there are some smart people who read my blog and I am looking to you to provide the best possible answer to this odd conundrum.
by Chris HP
On March 1, 2007 at 6:24 pm
What’s a trendy?
by Larry
On March 2, 2007 at 1:11 pm
It seems like a viable solution to a mid-life crisis. The car is touted as trendy and “sporty” (that word bothers me and I don’t know why,) so it only makes sense that it would fill that gap in a person’s life. On top of this, the car itself is pretty sensibly priced, reliable, etc. Standard Toyota stuff, really.
To me, a Scion would be a hell of a lot better than a Corvette, especially with the standard middle class budget, etc. I’d suppose a lot more wives would be understanding of a quick (ha!) little sedan than they would a 400-hp, 2-mpg two-seater.
As for why a person really buys one of the xB’s or xA’s, you’ve got me. Really, anyone who buys one of those ugly-ass things needs to be hit with a blunt object. In the head.
by Chad N
On March 4, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Stealing a thought from Amanda’s parrents; The xB (I think that’s the right one) looks like a toaster, and who wouldn’t want to drive a toaster? They actually have two pieces of giant, and I believe magnetic toast to go on the top of theirs. Perhaps you have seen them before. You should get Amanda to e-mail you a photo of their car to post here.
Also, alond with the whole mid-life thing. They are marketed as being very urban. Earlier the brand was cast as urban in an ethnic sort of way, now it is more in the literal, big city fashion. Who is more youthful than a dazzling urbanite?
by Chris HP
On March 5, 2007 at 8:11 am
Alright, I’m very caretarded. Hell, I’m 22 and haven’t even had a license for 6 months. Are these the commercials that make sure to state that the cars being featured are “not actual cars, but computer simulations”? As if I was expecting my car to shift shape and race with a being made of pure traffic light energies.
I think what they have managed to do was market something that looks as if it’s aimed at a young, hip demographic, but they missed their initial audience and tagged people who want to be young and hip.
Also, in response to Chad, I would love to drive a toaster. Love it.
by Ethan W
On March 5, 2007 at 5:39 pm
I think they managed to capture those slightly older people with one thing and one thing only…$
The price of the scion is what brings people attention to these slightly ugly cars (and by slightly i’m compairing them to a toad, with elephantitis, after being run over by a truck, turned into a zombie frog, eaten by a zombie bird, craped out and then run over again).
People are attracted by the price and the fact that these cars are toyota’s, and they are somewhat roomie, I think thats the only reasono these cars sell at all.
besides the fact that people are fudging stupid
by travis
On March 8, 2007 at 6:05 am
Ok, Larry we need to have words about what exactly a mid-life crisis, crisis mind you, entails. It does not entail cheap little unemotional cars. No my friend, you need something to bring some life back into your soul. Something to make you feel alive again.
Therefore, I shall be driving my Corvette/Porsche/Mustang GT/Audi S4/WRX STi around the highways and biways of our fair nation. I’ll be that blur in the left lane.
I think Ethan might have nailed it. These cars are cheap Toyota’s and because old people can’t see as well, they don’t know that they are ugly. Just my guess.
by Chris HP
On March 8, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Well… toasters ARE cool.