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[An incredible marketing taught by a professor at the University of Tokyo] Lexus and Toyota's natural waters are key to schema mismatches.
Roughly speaking
- A marketing blunder, transparent cola.
- Lexus Toyota utilizing moderate schema inconsistencies.
- Suntory Natural Water Scheme, Moderate Enabler.
Transparent Cola
In 1992, Pepsi Cola was in a state of pressure. They started to release cola, which has a healthy image for everyone around them. 7UP released "Uncola" which appealed to zero impurities, and criticised Pepsi Cola, a black carbonated drink, against Kechon Kechon.
Pepsi Cola sells the colorless, transparent, caffeine-free cola "CRYSTAL PEPSI", as a counter-tactic strategy, but it has a bad reputation and is forced to be suspended after just one year.
Moderate discomfort, Lexus and Toyota
Let's dig into a few more examples. Lexus and Toyota have gained an overwhelming advantage in new car sales in recent years.
In 2005, Toyota decided to make Lexus, a luxury car brand for North America, enter Japan. The trigger was the rise of luxury imported cars such as Mercedes-Benz.
At first, they were selling models that simply changed the emblems of Toyota Celsio and Soarer for a high price, but eventually only Lexus redesigned the design. Around this time, there was a strong impression that Toyota was a boring 80-point car. There were a lot of cars that wouldn't break but didn't want them, and as Mazda had just redesigned and began to make progress, Toyota had reached the ceiling in domestic sales.
Lexus has been redesigning its designs around 2012, with the highly distinctive designs being accepted in Japan and sales increased. When I was a university student, I went to ask Lexus President Fukuichi (in 2014) that he would be giving a lecture at the University of Tokyo, and I was amazed at the University of Tokyo because the design theory mentioned here was exactly the same composition as the schema introduced this time. This is because it was a design theory that was brilliantly based on customer psychology.
Fukuichi passionately stated that the Lexus' unique design is "a design that is so offensive that it has mixed opinions." When I first heard of it, I thought, "That wouldn't sell," but when I later applied the marketing schema, it was a design that was a beautifully attracting attention.
Consumers try to apply existing schemas (images) to new products to understand them. If this image is off, it becomes strange and people start to process more information. However, if it is too different, it will be treated as a different thing.
From the perspective of attracting important attention to marketing, moderate discrepancies are the most popular. It's boring if it's less than that, and if it's not more than that, I'll give up on understanding.
The success of the Lexus has been handed down to Toyota, and Toyota has been reborn with unique designs about three years ago. As a result, they have now established a solid position. On the other hand, the transparent Pepsi mentioned above is so inconsistent that it has been turned away by consumers.
The Suntory Natural Water Series Trail (Enabler)
However, in Japan, there are products that have been successful with clear drinks. Yes, it is natural water & Yogreena from Suntory's South Apples.
It was released in 2015 and quickly swept across Japan, becoming a huge hit.
This is essentially a yogurt flavored juice, but it was a clear colour. For some reason. This is because natural water acted as an enabler. In other words, the discomfort was moderately alleviated by the image of natural water and yogurt, making it the most attention-grabbing condition.
An enabler refers to a function that can eliminate the discomfort of the characteristic, and this time it is covered with natural water. If there were enablers for transparent colas, it could have been possible that customers' discomfort could have been moderately suppressed.
