Understanding How All Five Toyota Brands Will Operate Moving Forward
Toyota has a brand new strategy for how it will position its five freshly restructured brands to help differentiate each in the marketplace.
This past October, Toyota unveiled its new brand strategy, which involved restructuring its existing brands into five distinct concepts – each aimed at a different kind of consumer. This is a rather expansive pivot that previewed the future of Lexus, and involved the repurposing of the Century name as an even more luxurious automotive brand – along with an expansion of the Gazoo Racing (GR) line of models.
Thus, it’s worth taking a deeper dive into how Toyota plans to position its five brands – Toyota, Lexus, GR, Daihatsu, and Century – strategically, in the future, both separately and as a whole. Luckily, we have quite a lot of information as to how this will work.
Century
Century will serve as Toyota’s flagship brand, positioned above Lexus. According to Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, this all came about when he “suggested creating something above Lexus, but with Toyota being a full-lineup, mass-production manufacturer, the company inevitably opts for cars that deliver high volumes. But when it comes to luxury cars, we need to go above even Lexus. ‘What about Toyota’s Century?’ That was my advice for positioning.”
“In a sense, Lexus can now move more freely,” added Chief Branding Officer Simon Humphries, explaining how Toyota plans to differentiate Century from Lexus. “Lexus should continue to push forward as a pioneer, while Century sets its sights on the high end as the ‘Top of the Top, One of One.’”
Lexus
At the same time, Toyota took this opportunity to roll out a bevy of new and wild Lexus concepts that redefined the LS label as Luxury Space rather than Luxury Sedan. This included a six-wheeled LS Concept, quite the transformation for its soon-to-be-discontinued flagship sedan. This radical rethink symbolizes Toyota’s intentions for the future of Lexus, it turns out.
“When creating this new brand commercial, we had access to everything, even the parts that are normally kept private within the company, such as the Chairman’s directions that led to the idea of a six-wheeled space, and the discussions that took place,” said Takeshi Nozoe, who produced the Lexus commercial for those concepts. “We distilled this into the words ‘Discover’ and ‘Imitate no one.’ In fact, these were the words used by the Chairman, time and again, in spurring on the development team.”
“We want to go beyond imitation to improvement, and innovation. I think it’s time for some of our vehicles to push into the realm of innovation,” Toyoda said of its Lexus strategy. “It’s an incredible challenge. There are certain things people expect from Lexus – quietness, comfort, the ability to conquer any road. A six-wheeled vehicle must accomplish all these things. Everyone is committed to the task, and I am sure they will succeed.”
Toyota
Toyota has long been a mass market brand, and that won’t exactly be changing moving forward, either – which is the driving force behind the brand’s new mantra, “To You.”
“Every year, nearly 10 million customers choose a Toyota car,” Toyoda said. “What we must never forget is that these 10 million are not a single customer, but 10 million individuals. The words ‘To You’ sum that up perfectly. For me, that really hit home.”
GR
GR won’t necessarily be changing its focus either, which will remain on creating high-performance versions of all kinds of Toyota vehicles – along with standalone ones like the new GR GT. Its mantra is quite simple, too – to continue to pursue the simple joy of driving.
Daihatsu
Finally, we have Daihatsu, which has been given the keyword of “omoroi” (meaning interesting, fun, and creative) by Toyoda. That led to the creation of the tagline “Daihatsumei for me,” which is a play on the Japanese word hatsumei, or “invention.” “It’s a return to the company’s origins,” Humphries explained. “Daihatsu’s strength lies in underpinning everyday life, whether in cities or the countryside.”
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