SCION is a new brand from Toyota, to be rolled out in June 2003. It means offspring (or a shoot from a plant). BusinessWeek published the name in March when someone spotted the trademark application (once again showing the value of trademark databases). Register.com appears to have handled the domain name registrations for Toyota, and obtained SCION.COM, SCIONSUCKS.COM and SCIONCARSSUCK.COM.
A Toyota spokesperson said in an AdAge article:
“I don’t think a lot of people know how to pronounce” Scion . . . “We’ll take care of that with a few million dollars of marketing.”
I would have said “Pick a name people know how to pronounce and save a few million dollars.” So it’s a good thing I’m not in marketing.
Via David Galbraith.