Japanese Buy More Imports. Sadly, The Wrong Ones
Published: May 13th, 2010
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Japan is the land of crazes. There is a small, but steady imported car craze developing in the land of the supposedly closed car market. Imported car sales rose 2.6 percent year on year to 11,642 units in April, the sixth straight month of increase, says The Nikkei [sub], citing data by the Japan Automobile Importers Association.
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Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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I struggle to understand your definition of "wrong".
Bertel, Talk about crazes... I remember seeing something on TV that there were devoted Japanese fans of - are you ready for this - the Chevy Astro van! They had a club (or clubs) devoted to it. They used them to go camping, on vacations and the like. It was surreal. Do you know anything about it?
The iasc.jp site is beyond awesome with Google translate working its magic. I wonder if the Astro club members bring Cucumber Pepsi with them on their camping trips.
So the top import brand might sell 30,000 cars this year in a country with a population half the size of the US, and this proves how import friendly Japan is? Uh, ok.