As automobile and light truck sales improve, the battle for market share becomes a knock-down, drag-out fight.
American car companies started a trend a few years ago by mentioning the names of competing products in their advertising. For example, there was the Lincoln ad that showed a parking attendant confused by “look-alike” Buicks and Cadillacs.
General Motors has countered by comparing the new Cadillac DeVille with the Lincoln Continental, a model that has been around for a few years.
Now the foreign firms are entering the fray. Nissan hopes to knock Honda out of the ring. Nissan is pitting its Altima, made in Smyrna, Tenn., against the Honda Accord, built in Marysville, Ohio.
When the Altima was introduced in the fall of 1992, Nissan hoped to sell around 100,000 a year. They are selling much better than that, and Nissan factory executives and their dealers are not letting this success go unnoticed.
Nissan and the dealers have gone out to buy new Hondas to put in the showroom and then sell the Altima, priced from $13,999, right before the eyes of the Accord, priced from $14,130.
Honda is well-known in the U.S., so the extra publicity isn’t that important to them.
For years, Nissan has been trying to improve its image and sales in the U.S. Changing its brand name from Datsun to Nissan didn’t help; many feel it hurt.
Nissan spent millions advertising its Z cars, hot sports models that were reasonably priced. As they aged and improved, those Z cars became more expensive and sales leveled off.
The Z cars also have been joined by many other two seaters, chasing a limited market.
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In a reassessment of marketing strategy, Nissan has settled on the four-door sedan as the vehicle of choice, offering the Sentra, Altima and Maxima.