Hyundai to launch separate 'Genesis' brand...

Hbriz said:
I wouldn't say it's a particularly good idea here. We're massive badge snobs. Hyundai tends to mean cheap small young girls' car, basically because whenever you say 'Hyundai' people think you're either talking about an Excel or a Getz. Nobody bought the Grandeur, which is as close as they got to trying to sell a 'luxury' car. .
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Yeah, thats probably a good reason why Hyundai Australia wants to sell the luxury cars under the separate Genesis brand to distance them from Hyundai badges.
 
rickhamilton620 said:
I think that brand strategy makes sense. Even here, people are badge snobs when it comes to brands people consider "2nd tier": Your Hyundai's, Kia's, Suzuki's etc.

People still expect "a korean discount" in terms of MSRP compared to the competition and sometimes I wonder how people react to the idea of paying 60K for a Hyundai. It might be a good car but that badge weighs heavily on some people who want to flaunt what they've got, but not always have flaunt what they've got money.
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I agree with that people treat you differently when you are in a luxury car. I used to have a co-worker and we were talking about cars, he mentioned how he had a friend who is a doctor and the guy was considering buying a Huyndai because he really didn't care much for cars just wanted to get around but couldn't. Main reason for it was that if he doesn't drive something like BMW/Audi/MB his patients would look down on him and think that his not very successful and therefore not very good.
 
edkwon said:
Yeah, thats probably a good reason why Hyundai Australia wants to sell the luxury cars under the separate Genesis brand to distance them from Hyundai badges.
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I don't blame them for trying. Fun fact: the last model of the Tiburon, the closest thing Hyundai has come to a sports car in this country, had no external Hyundai badging. They used a badge with a 'T' in it instead.

What they need to do to be successful is be able to identify themselves as a standalone brand. BMW and Mercedes are the big players in this market, because the cars are unique to them, unlike Lexus, which is seen as a "posh Toyota". They need to have (or at least appear to have) no connection to a normal mainstream brand. Audi has done this well, most people don't know/don't care that it's a VW underneath, or that you could have an equivalently specced Skoda for much less.
 
Hbriz said:
I don't blame them for trying. Fun fact: the last model of the Tiburon, the closest thing Hyundai has come to a sports car in this country, had no external Hyundai badging. They used a badge with a 'T' in it instead.

What they need to do to be successful is be able to identify themselves as a standalone brand. BMW and Mercedes are the big players in this market, because the cars are unique to them, unlike Lexus, which is seen as a "posh Toyota". They need to have (or at least appear to have) no connection to a normal mainstream brand. Audi has done this well, most people don't know/don't care that it's a VW underneath, or that you could have an equivalently specced Skoda for much less.
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You can order the Genesis here with no Hyundai badge just the wings.
 
Hbriz said:
What they need to do to be successful is be able to identify themselves as a standalone brand. BMW and Mercedes are the big players in this market, because the cars are unique to them, unlike Lexus, which is seen as a "posh Toyota". They need to have (or at least appear to have) no connection to a normal mainstream brand. Audi has done this well, most people don't know/don't care that it's a VW underneath, or that you could have an equivalently specced Skoda for much less.
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I'm having trouble following your logic, because BMW, Mercedes and Lexus are all very commerically successful, yet first two aim for a 'unique' approach like you said and the 3rd example Lexus were seen as overdone Toyotas, yet they are all commerically successful.

Case in point: Lexus is now a separate brand in even Japan now and seen as a 'prestige' brand although not as high as the German brands simply because its still domestic.
 
edkwon said:
I'm having trouble following your logic, because BMW, Mercedes and Lexus are all very commerically successful, yet first two aim for a 'unique' approach like you said and the 3rd example Lexus were seen as overdone Toyotas, yet they are all commerically successful.

Case in point: Lexus is now a separate brand in even Japan now and seen as a 'prestige' brand although not as high as the German brands simply because its still domestic.
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I was referring to the Australian market, where Lexus has a very small market share, and I wouldn't classify them as particularly successful. I see more Alfa Romeos than I do Lexi, for example. Occasionally someone buys a beige RX400h and drives it around Mosman, but that's it. The US market is a different beast entirely.
 
Hbriz said:
I was referring to the Australian market, where Lexus has a very small market share, and I wouldn't classify them as particularly successful. I see more Alfa Romeos than I do Lexi, for example. Occasionally someone buys a beige RX400h and drives it around Mosman, but that's it. The US market is a different beast entirely.
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Makes sense, yes Lexus has a pretty big market share in Asia and N America, despite it being known they are just 'posh Toyotas', but their brand power had increased a LOT over the last 20 years. I remember when the original LS400 sedan came out and my parent's friend bought one and I thought, 'really, ppl are going to buy this over a mercedes?!'

Well, yeah, apparently its worked.
 
I have mixed feelings about this.

Like most others I feel brands should (for lack of better terms) feel proud of themselves. I have never understood the need to make another brand just for nicer models.

People buy small BMW's because they're BMW's. If Hyundai could prove themselves well enough they could find themselves in the same situation in about ten years or so.

This is the polar opposite of the position they find themselves in right now.

It's funny though because I'm not gonna lie, It feels a little bit better to say "lets take the Acura" over "lets take the Honda" but I guess that's just time working it's magic.
 
Night_Hawk said:
I have mixed feelings about this.

Like most others I feel brands should (for lack of better terms) feel proud of themselves. I have never understood the need to make another brand just for nicer models.

People buy small BMW's because they're BMW's. If Hyundai could prove themselves well enough they could find themselves in the same situation in about ten years or so.

This is the polar opposite of the position they find themselves in right now.

It's funny though because I'm not gonna lie, It feels a little bit better to say "lets take the Acura" over "lets take the Honda" but I guess that's just time working it's magic.
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The good thing is you'll get to see how it works BOTH ways

N. America - keeping the Hyundai brand on their luxury vehicles

Australia - trying the dedicated 'Genesis' brand as a test bed.

We can see over the next 4-5 years how this will work out. It's a perfect experiment.
 
forgot about that. If the models are pretty much the same between markets I'll have to keep an eye on the situation. It could be interesting.
 
Night_Hawk said:
I have mixed feelings about this.

Like most others I feel brands should (for lack of better terms) feel proud of themselves. I have never understood the need to make another brand just for nicer models.

People buy small BMW's because they're BMW's. If Hyundai could prove themselves well enough they could find themselves in the same situation in about ten years or so.

This is the polar opposite of the position they find themselves in right now.

It's funny though because I'm not gonna lie, It feels a little bit better to say "lets take the Acura" over "lets take the Honda" but I guess that's just time working it's magic.
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But what do you do if you want to sell luxury cars in the same size bracket as your cheaper cars? Take the US Jetta and A4/S4, for example. They're approximately the same size, yet the two of them span a price range of $16k to $65k (when taking options into account). I doubt you could efficiently cover such a price spread with the same car (can't share interiors, for example), so you pretty much have to have separate cheap and luxury models for any given size, and you might as well have a separate brand for each line by that point.
 
You make a good point there. One could argue using a bespoke chassis and building better cars from the ground up, but this costs big money and I guess this is why something like a Jetta shares parts with an A4 in the end.

I guess if the more expensive car is that much better then it doesn't really matter what badge is on it. I guess this is why some automakers do this and some don't.
 
Haha, lustig.
 
The body should also be beaten by Chester Thompson into a shape of a car?
 
Hbriz said:
I was referring to the Australian market, where Lexus has a very small market share, and I wouldn't classify them as particularly successful. I see more Alfa Romeos than I do Lexi, for example. Occasionally someone buys a beige RX400h and drives it around Mosman, but that's it. The US market is a different beast entirely.
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Really? I regularly see Lexus's driving around Brisbane, far more so than Alfa Romeos.
 
We have a Lexus dealer just up the road - shares the site with Toyota but different garage facilities and sales force. I think that Lexus here first launched the LS-400 that was meant to compete with the S Class Merc. It was so well built they were still driving around until the recent scrap page scheme. That took a lot of them off the road. I actually fancied one a bit but a bit expensive to run on gas and service.
 
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