What Automotive Brand Earned Your Family's Loyalty?
Photo: Towin, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Back in my days as a college marketing major, people loved to talk about brand loyalty. It’s one of the highest tiers a company can hope to reach in the mind of a consumer, below only brand evangelism, and it ensures that you’ve made a customer for life. Car companies, like any other, try to build brand loyalty — but they often go one step further, trying to build loyalty through a whole family.
Today, we’re talking about the car-brand family you grew up with. Were you raised in a staunch Ford household, with Mercurys in every driveway, or were you a GM group with garages packed full of Lucernes? Inquiring minds want to know.
Can you guess what kind of family I grew up in?Photo: IFCAR, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Single-brand families are often assumed to be an American carmaker thing. After all, what other kind of company specifically aligns its brands so people move between them as they age — like Chevy to Buick to Cadillac? But the concept of brand loyalty stretches far beyond that, out to nearly every automaker imaginable.
I, personally, grew up around Toyotas. I can’t even remember my grandparents ever owning something without that T on the front, and that trickled down to aunts, uncles, and parents. Sure, there were dalliances within my household with brands like BMW and Porsche, but it always circled back to Toyota or Lexus. Everything from GSes to Sequoias, Camrys to Land Cruisers, even a Supra and my own former FR-S. Yes, Scion still counts.
G/O Media may get a commission
31% Off
AstroAI Digital Tire Inflator
Top up your tires before you drive
Don’t risk heading out on the road with tires that are less than perfect. This digital tire inflator gives you an accurate read of your PSI, and lets you top up your tires from home.
But what was your automotive family growing up? Were you devout adherents to the book of Soichiro, singing Happy Honda Days carols door-to-door each year, or have you owned nothing but Mazdas your whole life? Give us your stories below, and we’ll collect our favorites tomorrow.
