Infiniti's Marketing Predicament: Performance or Efficiency?

When Infiniti releases its first ever hybrid vehicle, the 2012 M35h sedan, it will face a challenge it had never encountered before. From the marketer's perspective, this is new ground for the Luxury import brand, as they'll have to learn what rings customers' bells and sell them the car.

Infiniti is now struggling to find out whether they should market the M35h for its performance or fuel economy. Well... as long as can do both, it's better than two cars at once.

"The marketing will center on the point that hybrids have always been about compromise," says Ben Poore, Infiniti Business Unit vice president. "You either turn up fuel economy or you turn up performance. But in luxury, people want it all. So this car turns them both up."

In this case, we'd be happy to add "... a notch", because when chasing two rabbits, both will escape. The power increase is not that impressive, the car delivering only 360 hp from a 3.5-liter V6, but when it comes to economy, the luxury sedan promises 30 mpg (7.84 l/100km) on the highway and the unusual claim of being able to cruise for up to a mile at more than 60 mph (98 km/h) on pure battery power.

Wanting to know what customers prefer, Infiniti's website asks users to enter by selecting a path through "performance" or "efficiency". The selection takes visitors through details of the car with easy site navigation, with the Infiniti marketing division keeping a close eye on traffic reports to see how many visitors favor each path.