Lexus Is Done Making Boring Cars, According to Head of Marketing
A more consistently exciting lineup is a good thing, but Lexus isn’t losing focus of what has made it successful to date, either.
Lexus has always represented a more affordable, supremely reliable, and rather luxurious alternative to its more-established German rivals, and that immediately struck a chord with shoppers, helping Toyota’s luxury arm quickly find a niche in the automotive world. However, some of the brand’s designs over its existence, well, they’re what one might dare call conservative, while others have been widely viewed as a bit riskier. Regardless, it seems Lexus is committed to churning out exciting products moving forward, as Brian Bolain, the company’s global head of marketing, recently discussed in an interview with Creative Boom at Milan Design Week.
“Twenty to 30 years ago, we were much safer in our design choices,” Bolain said. “But a little over ten years ago, we finally decided to be a little bolder in our design. This came directly from above – our then-President Akio Toyoda made a speech in which he said, ‘No more boring cars’. That was his edict. And it was heard loud and clear in the design community inside the company.”
“For the first 20 years of its life, Lexus felt like it designed lots of cars that were almost unrelated,” he added. “Now we have a more cohesive family of products from a design perspective and an engineering perspective. Because for the last few years, we’ve had a really great chief engineer as one of our most senior executives. So we’ve talked a lot about a Lexus driving signature, which means you don’t have a chief engineer for product A making something wildly different from product B. Every product is part of a cohesive family.”
However, what’s particularly interesting about this shift is the fact that even Bolain notes that consumers either “either love or hate” these more daring designs, which is true of automotive styling in general. However, two things that continue to draw customers back to the brand are its high levels of craftsmanship and customer service, the latter of which is consistent across the 100 countries Lexus operates in. No matter what the future holds in terms of electrification, those things remain the same, which is precisely what keeps the brand afloat.
“I’ve been around Lexus since it was created a long, long time, so I’ve seen the brand through many phases,” Bolain said. “And I don’t think the foundation will ever change. The foundation of customer care, quality, and craftsmanship will be with us forever.”
Photos: Lexus
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