Q: What's pink, 11 feet long, and has snowflake hubcaps that sparkle when you drive?
A: The Pino, Nissan's bid to sell young women a rebranded Suzuki at a $3,000 premium based entirely on saccharin-sweet, Hello Kitty-cuddly cuteness.
That kind of niche marketing isn't supposed to work in the car business — which makes Nissan's success (5,500 orders in the Pino's first month, more than twice Nissan's 2,500-unit target) even, um, sweeter. Normally, using cutesey fluffy pinkness to sell cars to 20-year-old women would be beyond the pale — too narrow, too sexist, too ludicrous. Not so in Japan:
A manga-style marketing brochure tells the story of "three young well-dressed women going shopping together, manicuring their nails to match the star-patterns on Pino seats, using aromatherapy oils in the car." Nissan hopes young women just like them will buy a Pino now, then shift to a pricier Nissan model once those hubcaps' sparkle fades. Nissan even built a web site just for Pino merchandise to target online shoppers, "who tend to live in areas far from the glitzy stores of Tokyo and other cities — exactly the demographics of those who buy minicars." Hello, money!
Nissan Motor Company woos young women [AP via BusinessWeek]
