The Sun Sets on Saturn. A Sad End To a Great Brand Beginning.

Watch the video. It's a rather poignant reminder of what Saturn was able to accomplish, leading up to the brand's hope for the future... namely Roger Penske.

Of course, we now know that the Penske deal has fallen through and that, barring some eleventh hour miracle, Saturn will quietly go into the history books.

It's a shame. When Saturn came on the automotive scene in 1990, they truly were a "Different Kind of Car Company". They embraced an offline branding strategy that was very much like the online social media strategies marketers are buzzing about now, twenty years later.

They changed the game. Saturn was customer-centric. They embraced consumers like no other car company on earth and celebrated them as customers. They had fans when being fans of a brand wasn't fashionable... almost a cult-like following. As they grew, they had customer reunions and other events that brought people who bought their cars together all over the country... they built a community. They nailed social networking before those words were buzz. In short, Saturn was very much ahead of it's time.

Of course, at some point, for many reasons you can read about elsewhere, they turned into the same old kind of car company. Again, a shame.

G.M. began a bold experiment twenty years ago. They embraced and fostered innovation in a category that was stale, and at the dealership level, intimidating to customers and were able to reinvent the way cars were marketed and sold to consumers.

Unfortunately, they didn't stick with it. The overwhelming corporate culture and internal red tape that led to the ultimate demise of the entire G.M. brand and bankruptcy infected, weakened and destroyed Saturn long before the breakdown of the Penske Deal.

It's too bad that G.M. didn't learn from Saturn's initial success.

With Hal Riney's agency at the helm and a strategy of friendly, exceptional customer service, engagement and community building, they did everything right and built a brand that truly was different from any other in the category. It didn't even seem to matter that the early cars weren't really all that great.

People bought them, loved them and loved the brand. What more can you ask for? 

Comments

[Greg]

Good Post. Saturn started out with a great idea, then let it die on the vine. They let the original models run for far too long. Had they simply changed a few designs, freshened a few styles, interest in the brand would not have waned.