Purse and purpose revisited
In discussions of branding and product planning, Sloan's Rule is basic.

A car for every purse and purpose.

But it wasn't quite that simple. GM and Ford and Chrysler had different approaches to status and choice.

GM used Sloan's rule with a tight correlation. A car for every pursepurpose. If you wanted a limousine, you had to buy a Cadillac. If you wanted a business coupe, you had to buy a Chevy.

Chrysler applied it without the correlation. A car for every purse, AND a car for every purpose. During the '30s you could buy a limousine in all four brands, and you could buy a business coupe in all four brands. This gave Chrysler an advantage in specialized markets like taxis (cheap limos) and company cars for executives. The real purpose of a business coupe wasn't the large trunk, it was the missing back seat. When a company supplied cars to its employees for business use, the business coupe insured that the car couldn't be used to haul the kids to school. A company that wanted its executives to drive high-prestige cars could buy a New Yorker business coupe.

Ford didn't use the rule at all because Ford didn't have separate brands until 1936, and even then didn't really bother to distinguish them until after WW2. (Yes, Lincoln was part of the corporation, but a product that sold 1500 units a year wasn't really a step in a brand hierarchy; it was just a way to keep Edsel respectably busy.)

GM had another rule which is often mixed in with Sloan's rule, but the mix isn't necessary.

Earl's rule:

Forward in time and upward in price. The hierarchy must drive you to purchase this year's model AND purchase the next step up the ladder.

Earl understood that status is measured by both temporal and spatial deltas. Thus GM insured that this year was visibly different from last year, and insured that the brands could be mapped onto a visible status scale with fine divisions. If you had a Chevy and your neighbor had a Pontiac, you felt the pressure. If you had a Chevy 210 and your neighbor had a Chevy Bel Air, you felt the pressure.

Chrysler didn't use this rule until 1955. DeSoto didn't LOOK more expensive than Plymouth. Each brand had standard and deluxe trim levels, but they were identical in appearance.

Ford didn't catch on until 1956, when it finally made the Lincoln LOOK more expensive than the Mercury. Before 1956 the Lincoln had looked cheaper or even unfinished.

Labels: Metrology

  ¶ 1:59 AM