Toyota Prius = Marketing Mastery

It was a month ago that I first read about the Toyota Prius adding solar panels to the top of their sunroof by 2010. At first thought, that is brilliant. As a driver is cruising down the road they can charge their battery even faster and use even less gas. Why didn’t I think of that?

While Toyota expects that the solar panels could increase mileage this is not the reason why they are adding solar panels to the sunroof.

It is obvious that Toyota has done their marketing research. In Japan especially, but also the US and Europe, people like to take naps in their car at lunch time with the air conditioning on full blast. They spend the 40 or so minutes cooling off in their car with the engine running. A waste of fuel? You bet. By watching this behavior and conducting focus groups Toyota recognized a need from the consumer and figured out a way to help these lunch time nappers. As it turns out, the surface area of one Prius sunroof would be just enough electricity to run the air conditioning.

Will this sell more Toyota Priuses? Not immediately. Will this increase customer loyalty? You had better believe it.

Customer loyalty is one of the most important metrics in the auto sales industry. As everyone knows it costs much less to keep a current customer than to go searching for new ones. More to the point, it has been proven that people who buy the same brand and model of car to replace their current brand and model of car are willing to pay about 3% more than a person new to that brand.

So, imagine you have the largest market share of hybrids, which Toyota does, and you have a relatively inexpensive way to “wow” them into only shopping for your cars again by showing you understand their lifestyle. It is a no-brainer. It is all of these little things that the “Big Three” in Detroit are missing. They do not effectively conduct marketing research which leads to products that consumers do not want to buy.

It is easy to see why Prius owners have such a high satisfaction rate with their car. They feel completely understood.

The impact to the Prius customer: 100% satisfaction

The impact to Toyota: 3% higher margins

The Big Three: Discounting SUV’s and Trucks