Feb 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Charles Hughes And William Jeanes

“A different kind of company, a different kind of car,” was Saturn's original advertising slogan.

And Saturn was a resounding success. Why? Because as the company attempted to rewrite the rules on building a small domestic car, it took a hard look at the entire ball game — how to engineer a car, how to build a car, and how to sell a car.

Saturn and its newly minted dealer body gave themselves permission to dissect the methods by which cars were being sold at the time. It was not a pretty autopsy. Customers, in the main, hated the buying experience and hated the service experience. This insight was hardly groundbreaking, but their drive to change things was. They knew that most customers did not like to haggle on price and still wind up feeling as if they had been hosed down like a muddy pickup truck.

Saturn steeped its sales force in product knowledge and paid them a flat fee for the sale of each car — not a commission based on how much they could squeeze out of each hapless customer. In a burst of marketing genius, Saturn did not send its early prototypes to the scrapyard crusher. Instead, it made cutaway display cars like those seen at auto shows and placed them in dealerships.

Then Saturn took the delivery process to a new level. With precious few exceptions, most dealers were no better at delivering a car to a customer than the counter person who hands you a Big Mac and mumbles something about having a nice day. Virtually everyone did little more than hand customers a set of keys and wish them good luck. Maybe the car contained enough fuel to get to the Exxon station, maybe it didn't.

Saturn made its retail buying experience less like slaughtering cattle and more like a celebration. Before delivery, every car was thoroughly inspected, cleaned, and topped off with gas. Then, when customers picked up their new Saturn, all salespersons were invited to join the buyer in the dealership's separate delivery room. There they cheered and shouted congratulations as the buyer had a picture taken standing next to the new car. Customers loved the experience and couldn't wait to tell their friends about it.

The dealerships didn't stop there. They offered doughnuts and coffee to all their customers. Saturn was not the first company to think of this, but they executed it smartly and in every store. Saturn insisted; it did not rely on local dealers doing it only if they thought it was smart or felt like it.

This piece is excerpted from Branding Iron: Branding Lessons from the Meltdown of the U.S. Auto Industry. It is being published this month by Racom Communications (Racombooks.com).

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