And while it looks as if Nissan is trimming its staff in order to decrease monthly costs, in reality its Tennessee office could be
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| Canada, meet Nissan's next top model, the reinvented Altima. (Photo: Nissan Canada) |
facing a employee shortage thanks to the number of new models rolling into its showrooms, including its new Versa subcompact people-hauler, arriving this summer, redesigned Sentra compact sedan, reworked Quest minivan, and critically important 2007 Altima midsize sedan, available in November, each of which will need dedicated and ongoing sales and marketing plans.
The current Altima has been the automaker's best seller in North America, so it should find plenty of ready and willing buyers with or without much advertising support. Likewise, high fuel prices should help the subcompact, fuel-friendly Versa make friends quickly, although the word will still need to be spread via the normal advertising channels. The Sentra, mind you, replaces a car that has fallen off most compact buyers' radars due to an aging design, and therefore will need more marketing support than, say, the Honda Civic needed with its recent redesign. The Quest finds itself needing even greater backend support, as the current model, which doesn't appear to be all that different than the new one, at
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| The 2007 Quest doesn't appear all that much different than the one it replaces, so Nissan's marketing team will even need to be more creative than if it had something all-new to sell. (Photo: Nissan Canada) |
least visibly, is North America's least favourite midsize van, thanks to an unorthodox and somewhat unfriendly interior design and troublesome reliability. Nissan once again finds itself needing to reinvent itself within the minivan segment, but stuck with a model that hardly seems any different than the one most van buyers have chosen to shun, getting the word out that the newone is better than the old one, let alone the competition, will take creativity and megabucks.
The updated Quest comes at a time when some automakers, Ford being one and Mazda rumoured to be
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| Nissan is facing an uphill battle in the minivan segment. (Photo: Nissan Canada) |
another, are considering leaving the minivan segment for versatile crossovers, a vehicle trend that appears to be growing in popularity. This could open up opportunities to Nissan, if it chooses to directly target disenfranchised owners of vans that will be going out of production. This said there's a reason why some automakers are leaving the segment; it's shrinking. In other words, with or without the move to Tennessee and a significant reduction in sales and marketing staff, Nissan is facing an uphill battle in the minivan segment, and will also find buyers within the subcompact and compact segments a challenge to win over.
Nissan has been out of the subcompact segment since it dropped its Micra in 1991
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| Nissan has been out of the compact segment since it dropped the Micra back in 1991. (Photo: Nissan Canada) |
(1989 in the U.S.), after experiencing strong sales for most of the '80s. Making a success of its new Versa will require some savvy marketing skill, even if the car is as good as it, on paper, appears to be. Small car lovers have long since migrated to Hyundai and Kia, due to their thrifty Accent and Rio models, as well as Chevrolet, which has long been re-badging Suzuki Sprints with bowties and now works the same magic with its GMDAT (Daewoo) South Korean-made subcompact, the Aveo. Toyota has also maintained a presence in the subcompact segment, with its Echo, and looks to reap the reward now that its new Yaris hatchback and sedan are available, and Honda, while never previously offering a subcompact model, should pull in significant sales of its new Fit just because the Honda nameplate normally does well in every market segment it does business in - excepting pickup trucks. The Versa should find its niche, but it won't come without a fight.
