Wednesday, January 05, 2011

What to Keep. What to Ditch.

Art Contrarian looks at the changing style of Chrysler. An excerpt:

The continuity school of thought holds that, since a good deal of money has been invested in establishing a brand image and if sales have been satisfactory, it's best to build on that widely recognized image. Luxury makes such as Mercedes, Rolls-Royce and (at one time) Packard also did not want loyal customers left in the lurch in the form of a total makeover.

The change-everything rationale is less clear. Where an existing design is a sales failure, it makes sense to wipe the styling slate clean to eradicate a bad image. The case for clean-slating a successful design is harder for me to grasp. Perhaps the thinking is that Brand X already has the image of being progressive/innovative, and something different is what buyers have come to expect. Or maybe corporate management doesn't accept or perhaps even understand the logic of continuity.

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