Datsun's Potential Comeback

According to the article "Nissan May Revive Datsun" in Friday's Wall Street Journal, Nissan is considering restarting its retired Datsun brand. Datsun cars, which were around until the mid 80s, were small, inexpensive cars that had a sporty appeal. Interestingly, Nissan plans to have an entirely new focus around the Datsun Brand. The line would be launched in emerging markets, like India, Russia, and Indonesia, where Nissan brand cars are too expensive for most people to afford. By 2014, Nissan expects to be selling roughly 300,000 Datsun cars per year priced at around $6,173 each.

Old Datsun Car

I find Nissan's new strategy pretty intriguing, especially after extensively discussing Toyota in class a few weeks ago. It is interesting that Nissan is contemplating re-launching its lower priced, sporty line, considering the fact that Toyota's Scion line, also cheaper and targeted towards a younger market, has been performing poorly. It is also pretty noteworthy that Nissan's move goes against the overwhelming trends in the car market. Car manufacturers have been pulling back on subsidiary brands, like Ford who discontinued Mercury and GM who discontinued Hummer, Pontiac and Saturn, and have been working to create more unified images of their brands. But, unlike its competitors, Nissan is launching Datsun in markets where it has little to no presence. The fact that Nissan and Datsun brand will not be competing and will not be present in the same markets could ultimately be what makes this strategy successful.

Scion RS3

I think that Nissan's relaunch of Datsun has potential to be very successful, despite the fact that it is going against what all of its competitors have been doing.  If Nissan can align the Datsun brand with the its CVP, which is to provide well-designed, practical, and inexpensive cars, then it will avoid some of the risk that its competitors took with their own subsidiary brands. This move also shows how Nissan is constantly revising and improving its strategy, as it has found a smart way to enter markets that its competitors (like Toyota) have yet to dominate. Nissan is currently the most profitable car manufacturer in Japan, and its clever idea to launch a modified version of its cars for a new target customer under a vintage well-known brand name, could be what keeps it successful in years to come.

Steve Wozniak Datsun Commercial