NASHVILLE -- Last winter, when Nissan Motor Co.'s executive committee for the Americas gathered to discuss the future position of the Nissan brand, one marketing mission became clear: It needed a makeover.
The brand was stagnating in the market. Sales were inching forward, but new products just weren't catching fire.
Despite major recall issues, Toyota owned the quality space in the import segment, and the Prius was the industry darling in hybrids. Honda was cool, light and nimble and stayed stubbornly ahead with a reputation for fuel economy and reliability.
But Nissan?
After several years spent chasing pricing -- and even with an electric vehicle on the horizon -- the brand struggled in anonymity.
It was a generic Japanese brand.
Nissan's U.S. leaders are candid in their admission that theirs is a brand in search of itself.
“At our core,” says Carlos Tavares, Nissan's leader for the Americas, “we didn't know what we stood for.”
It is mid-October, and Tavares is seated across a long table in a conference room at Nissan's U.S. headquarters, 10 floors above southern Nashville's lush, rolling countryside.
Nissan's marketing makeover
Last winter, when Nissan Motor Co.'s executive committee for the Americas gathered to discuss the future position of the Nissan brand, one marketing mission became clear: It needed a makeover. The brand was stagnating in the market. Sales were inching forward, but new products just weren't catching fire. As Nissan prepares to launch a moderately priced new global family car powered by a nonpolluting electric battery, Nissan will tout the zero-emission Leaf EV as a game-changer. But it's bigger mission is to redefine an entire brand that executives, in frank disclosures last week, say has lost its way against the competition.
