By its own admission, for the 15 years it has been in the UK market, Lexus has been happy to be the luxury brand with the least easily defined image. It has meant that while you need to be a certain sort of person to want, say, a BMW, anyone might have a Lexus on their shopping list.
It’s more than a little telling that not only do lead characters in shows as gritty as Spooks and Waking The Dead drive Lexus products, but so too do rather more lightweight comedic small screeners such as Martin Clunes in Doc Martin and that most famous of all fictional Lexus drivers, Alan Partridge.
These product placements have been made because Lexus has twigged that to want a Lexus, first you must know what one is. And this very anonymity with which Lexus has hitherto been so comfortable is responsible for the fact that, in the UK, the marque has a brand recognition of just six per cent. It seems that topping the JD Power customer satisfaction survey five years in a row is just not enough.
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