An interesting article by Jack Trout, a marketing guru.
Some German car brands are also mentioned in the article.


Brand Schizophrenia

Jack Trout, 10.17.05, 6:00 AM ET

NEW YORK - Powerful brands have distinct personalities: Duracell’s batteries last a long time. Volvos are safe in a crash. But even dominant brands can fade if they fall prey to multiple personality disorder.

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Interesting, it doesn't take a marketing guru to see that Mercedes Benz have a brand identity problem. But it's not as cut and dried as Mr. Trout alludes.
In the past Mercedes Benz only made large or sporty luxury cars. Mercedes Benzes were not the preserve of the man on the street.

In a modern age, volumes count and smaller, cheaper mass produced cars are the sure fire way to achieve economies of scale. MB surely recognised this a while back and instituted strategies to diversify their product offerings. Is that so hard to understand, Mr Trout? Do I view Mercedes model line-up as being overly diversified? Perhaps... but I don't view the model diversification as detrimental to the Mercedes brand, instead I feel that Mercedes have lost brand identity through a loss of reputation. Mercs just aren't made like they used to be. In my humble opinion of course.

One could argue that the model diversification is a reason for this, but I find that hard to swallow. There should be no reason why the introduction of a B-Class should negatively impact on the quality of an E-Class. That's just down to bad management and a lack of attention to detail.

BMW? Easy for them right now, in the eighties and nineties BMW had a reputation for building emotive cars that weren't that well put together nor were they expected to last beyond 200 000km. In those days a Merc was for life. So BMW are riding a wave of subconcious buyer acceptance that cars are disposable.

BTW, interesting article!

This guy has some crazy sentiments, i think that is what he does for Forbes. He gives very opinionated statements like ...

"The result is that in Europe, Mercedes Benz is not listed as the top brand. The Audi A8, BMW, Maserati and Jaguar have taken over this position. "

Exactly. This guy makes some pretty stupid statements, like the one Alx pointed out, with no credibility.

I still stand by my statement!

As for quality, it has been an issue with all GC's! Not just MB.

I dunno if you misunderstood what I wrote, I wasn't saying your statment had no credibility...I was agreeing with what you said Alx.

That writer makes many statments lacking credibility.

Oh, i know that.... I was commenting towards Notic's statement before he deleted his post....

No worries!

sorry, i deleted because i thought he quoted the article, but i realized he was actually quoting martinbo.

Interesting article - but i wouldn't say that Mercedes is no longer regarded as the top brand - but it is perceived differently than in the past - many of it's traditional buyers in Europe have moved away from the S class - Audi and BMW have picked up quite a few of Mercedes old customers. Luckily for Mercedes, a younger and more newly rich market has emerged for their cars, but this also might put-off conservative potential customers even more.

One thing I do object to though, is the racist remarks I have read on some forums pertaining to the high status the Mercedes-Benz brand has in Hip-Hop culture - particularly among young black Americans. I have read some disgusting and offensive things from ignorant morons who seem to think Mercedes is a brand that should only be owned by a particular type of person - need I say more.