A Japanese interpretation of an American hotrod may seem a strange recipe for Toyota’s latest vehicle.

But the Scion Hako, a boxy, two-door concept car unveiled at the New York auto show last week, shows that the normally cautious Japanese carmaker is not averse to some risky bets with its youth-oriented brand.

Taking risks may be the best – if not the only – way for Toyota to breathe new life into Scion.

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To promote the limited-edition Scion xB RS 5.0 (of which only 2500 exist), ATTIK has put together a campaign called "Rare Metal."

"We are treating these vehicles as priceless valuables," said CD Simon Needham of ATTIK.

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For the last decade, Eastman Kodak has been the poster child for how a disruptive innovation–in this case digital imaging–can plunge even the best-run firms into crisis. Over the last 18 months, Kodak has worked hard to turn the forces of disruption to its advantage, with so-far mixed results.

Kodak has increasingly focused on moving beyond capturing images to sharing images. The company says that its online photo-sharing site, Kodak EasyShare Gallery, has about 70 million members, a number that admittedly still trails Yahoo.

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The vast majority of marketing is good for individual consumers, good for firms, and good for society. Marketplace exchanges are based on mutual trust between buyers and sellers–they create value for both parties; the billions of daily marketplace transactions are a large part of the glue that holds societies together.

Good marketers offer consumers choices. Choice stimulates consumption and economic growth and enables personal expression. Good marketers provide consumers with information about new products and services.

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More than any other city in China, Shanghai is inundated with the conspicuously Western- style marketing multinationals rely on to build brand equity.

From enormous billboards to tiny screens in taxi cabs, advertising is a big part of the city. And not a day goes by without myriad events sponsored by companies, many of them Western, looking to connect with local customers.

Few, however, are succeeding.

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Nokia announced today at the 2007 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) Show its new business relationship with Scion within the scope of Scion Optomize.

Scion Optomize is an aftermarket accessory program that brings cutting-edge products and convenience to Scion owners and allows customers to personalize their xA, xB, xD or tC by purchasing accessories through Scion dealerships.

Eight Nokia accessories will now be available via this channel offering various categories of products such as Bluetooth car kits, Bluetooth stereo headsets and headphones and other products from Nokia, the world’s mobile communications leader.

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The cancellation of the Honda Accord hybrid by the Japanese automaker announced this week should be recorded as one of the most spectacular marketing failures of the last five years.

Honda announced that the new Accord, due out next year, won’t have a hybrid version. The announcement confirmed a story in Businessweek.com last January. The reason is simple. The one it has been trying to sell has been a flop. But why? In the current environment, not being able to sell a gas-electric hybrid takes real talent and effort. The Toyota Prius has sold 77,000 in the U.S. in just the first five months of they year. Honda, meantime, has sold 1,700 Accord hybrids and 13,900 Civic hybrids. Ford has sold just 9,252 Escape hybrids.

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A different breed of credit card marketer flooded college campuses across the country starting on Oct. 10: a counter-marketer.

Credit card companies have been storming college campuses in recent years to seize a slice of the promising college market. But as student debt levels have surged, in some cases to dangerous levels, credit card companies have come under increasing scrutiny by federal and state lawmakers.

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There’s no doubt the green niche can be lucrative. Environmentally aware consumers tend to earn more and be willing to pay more for green products, such as organic produce and hybrid cars.

The problem, however, is that only a very small percentage of consumers make their buying decisions primarily based on the environmental qualities of a product, says Edwin R. Stafford, an associate professor of marketing at Utah State University’s College of Business. Depending on what your product is, it may very well be difficult to sustain sufficient sales within that niche alone.

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After searching for nearly a year, Ford Motor hired the global chief marketing executive that was on Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally’s wish list from Day One of the hunt—Toyota’s James Farley, who most recently was running the Japanese automaker’s Lexus brand worldwide.

At Ford, Farley, who reports to the CEO, will spearhead Mulally’s strategy of rebuilding Ford around the Ford blue-oval brand worldwide with a one-global-brand strategy. Ford in the last decade has strayed from its core brand while it pursued a luxury-brand portfolio that has included Jaguar, Volvo, Land Rover, and Aston Martin. Aston has been sold, and the other three are on the block.

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