Badge engineering

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Badge engineering is a term that describes the rebadging of one model of car as another. This often occurs when two companies pool resources by operating a joint venture or merging their operations.

Ford Fiesta

Mazda 121, Europe

While differences were originally confined to the badges used on the model, more typically it involves slight styling differences, usually with different headlights and tail lights. The term derives from the pot metal trademark emblems fastened onto the outside of the car or onto the dashboard (fascia).

It also occurs when an individual manufacturer, such as General Motors, owns a portfolio of different brands, and markets the same car under a different brand in different locales.

Language problems or marketing decisions may lead to a car being given a different model name in a certain country (for example, the Mitsubishi Pajero is called the Montero in Spanish-speaking countries and North America and the Shogun in the UK) although this may not constitute badge engineering as the car is still sold under the same brand name.

Due to the high cost of establishing a new brand and the many years for it to gain acceptance, it is often more cost effective to rebadge a product under an existing name.

For example, cars built by Daewoo, now owned by General Motors, are now only badged as Daewoos in South Korea and Vietnam. In other markets, they are now badged as Chevrolets. Similarly, in Australia and New Zealand, where Daewoo was unsuccessful, they are now rebadged as Holden models.

Badge engineering also occurs in luxury models. Japanese brands found it difficult to shed their 'cheap and cheerful' image in North America when luxury models started appearing in the 1990s. So Honda, Toyota, Nissan and Mazda started Acura, Lexus, Infiniti and Eunos respectively. Each new badge adding prestige values that would not be possible without shifting the core brand values of the parent brand. Toyota was already a luxury brand in most Asian countries, so the Lexus brand was not marketed there. However, Lexus has been so successful as a prestige badge engineering exercise that Toyota are now marketing the brand in their native Japan.

Excessive badge engineering can be problematic for car companies, and even detrimental, especially when more than one version of the same car is sold in the same market. Such an example would be car commonly called the Austin Princess, built by British Leyland between 1975 and 1984. British Leyland was formed from many previously independent British car manufacturers, and each retained a certain amount of brand loyalty. BL's predeccesor, the British Motor Corporation had launched many models under both the Austin and Morris marques. However, the Princess (at launch the car's model number was the 18-22) was available as an Austin, a Morris and Wolseley. Having one car being sold under three identities stunted sales and made marketing difficult. The car was then sold solely as the Leyland Princess, with the company trying to create a brand new identity for the car until it was yet again renamed as the Austin Ambassador in 1982.

Leyland 18-22 grilles in a period advertisement, with Wolseley, Austin and Morris models.

The term is also used for the makers of consumer electronics and household appliances sold under different names, especially the house brands of discount merchandisers, who can make specifications that would result in a lower-quality product as well.

[edit] Current examples

[edit] Past examples

[edit] Models produced under licence

These lists do not include models that have been produced by other companies under licence, such as versions of the Mitsubishi Colt and Proton Persona produced by Proton in Malaysia or the Renault 12 produced by Dacia in Romania.

[edit] See also

• Captive import