5 brands we would miss: saturn
Saturn is today’s entry in the blog series on “5 Brands We Would Miss.” I’m running the series by posting each day this week about a brand from 24/7 Wall’s list of “Twelve Major Brands That Will Disappear.” I have been giving my thoughts on what we would miss as a result of the brand disappearing and inviting readers (you!) to comment as well.
Saturn was a no-brainer for inclusion in the series. After all I and others (including Newsweek, Martin Bishop, LA Times, Greg Goebel) have previously written about the sad state of the brand. So, let me just recap the 3 main points that have been made about why Saturn was such great brand:
- a bold brand mission: “to develop and produce an American-made small car that will be fully competitive with the best of the imports … [and] affirm that American ingenuity, American technology and American productivity can once again be the model and the inspiration for the rest of the world,” as described by Roger Smith at its launch.
- a revolutionary customer experience at the dealership: not just hassle-free, “haggle-free”
- products designed with their target in mind: the company knew what its Gen X target audience wanted in a car and it showed in their initial product designs
Although the company ended up abandoning these and other elements of “the Saturn way” and the brand has become only a shadow of its former self, Saturn will be missed nonetheless. Agree?