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You've Come A Long Way… Industry
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| The Auto Industry and Women: From Detroit's Dark Ages to Signs of Enlighten |
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| Updated |
Jun 10, 2004 21:20:31 |
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 159 ( -22 -13.83% ) | | Author | Beth McGroarty |
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Description:
Until the last decade or so, when one conjured up an image of the 'auto industry,' a group of white-shirt, dark-tie-bedecked white men, meeting in a cigar-smoke-filled boardroom might come to mind. After making decisions about what all consumers will drive, they might then return to a well-groomed suburb in Pleasantville, Michigan, to be greeted by their perfect wife and 2.3 children. The concept of the perfect suburban family, and cars as an American cultural obsession, both took hold in the early 50s. The average car buyer couldn't seem to get enough chrome detailing, tail fins, and magic, push-button power hoods on boat-like convertibles. In the 50s, marketing execs at the Big Three unleashed wildly impractical show cars that regular folk would probably never drive but that created a lot of excitement for the brand. These show cars and marketing stunts do reveal quite a bit about the mindset of the auto industry almost a half-century ago, and how it represented the male and FEMALE consumer.
With fanciful design running rampant in the 50s, Chrysler may be credited with the dubious achievement of creating the very first car marketed directly at women. According to The 1955-56 Dodge La Femme: By Appointment To Her Majesty…The American Woman By Tony Lindsey, Chrysler took its 'his' and 'her's' cars-Le Comte and La Comtesse-on the 1955 national auto show tour. As you might guess, Le Comte was faultlessly masculine--a medley of black and bronze--while La Comtesse was its 'pretty' feminine equivalent in pink and light gray. According to the original 1955 Chrysler press release, La Comtesse's most notable features were its "gorgeous two-tone exterior in dusty rose with a pigeon-gray top…and dusty rose leather." The engine and other performance/hardware features are buried at the end of the release, second fiddle to details like the "brocatelle" fabric throughout. Numerous 'feminine' show cars quickly followed: Cadillac's Eldorado Seville Baroness, Pontiac's Pink Parisienne, and Chevy's Impala Martinique.
Maybe it was pin-up bombshell Jayne Mansfield's well-publicized gesture of putting mink seat covers and trim inside her Lincoln Continental that spurred one of Detroit's most outrageous examples of marketing to women. Subtly christened 'La Femme,' this 50s Dodge was a pink convertible with impractical rose tapestry upholstery throughout. The car came with a handy matching raincoat, rain boots and bonnet, lipstick compact and purse. (Why would anyone need pink rain boots in a car? Why would anyone want pink rain boots?) La Femme featured a totally pink steering wheel (even on the column's molding), an all pink dash and pink just about everywhere else. Designed for an imaginary celebrity bombshell, it was a total bomb with the American woman car buyer. (Of course, who wouldn't now secretly covet a La Femme, as an ironic, and highly collectible symbol of the courage and creativity of 50s sexism?)
Perhaps it's unfair to single out these grossly literal examples of designing for, and marketing to, women from the unenlightened automotive past. However, there's precious little evidence that design and marketing for women went much beyond surface prettiness and feminine accessorizing until quite recently. "La Femme" and "La Comtesse" may, however, mark an important turning point in the automotive industry-at least it was a sign that a female consumer existed, and desperately needed some kind of marketing to.
The auto industry has been, by all accounts, strangely slow in realizing the power of the female consumer and the increased power of her purse. As recently as 1997, the New York Times reported that one domestic maker proudly promoted the fact that their engineers wore paper clips on their fingers to better design dashboard controls that would be long-fingernail friendly. A comprehensive study of Chicago car dealerships found that when people negotiated for a car with a dealer, white men got lower final offers than either women or African-Americans. That study revealed that the final price for white women reflected 40% more mark-up than for white men, with the mark-up triple for African-American women!
These anecdotes from Detroit's Dark Ages are, thankfully, becoming scarcer. As women's economic power increased through the 70s and 80s, and took off in the 90s, the auto industry started to change with them. According to a recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, women account for 41% of total US auto sales, and an even more significant hunk of passenger car sales. According to the industry's annual new-vehicle customer survey, women bought more than half of all new pleasure cars in '98-up from 40% in 1990. The industry has abandoned the 'La Femme' approach, because they'd be committing financial suicide if they didn't thoroughly re-think the woman consumer, and STOP THINKING PINK.
Here's Why:
Studies by automakers and market-research firms suggest that nearly half of all car buyers are women. That's up from 20% in 1984, and 28% in 1990. The current number is expected to climb to 60% by 2000!
Women's reach is even more dramatic: these studies indicate that women influence between 80-85% of all vehicle purchases.
Each woman automotive customer influences between 10 and 12 other women, because women make a point of buying from sources that treat them well.
According to the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (ASE), 65 to 80 percent of repair and service customers are women.
Although women do buy the majority of the under-$20,000 cars, when the economic means are there, the nation's increasingly affluent women buy the high-end luxury and sport models. The Detroit Free Press reported that in 1997, women bought about 32% of regular SUVs, but more than half of the high-end ($30,000-plus) models like the Grand Cherokee. Women's migration from low-profit small cars to high-ticket, high-profit vehicles, makes women crucial to the manufacturers.
38% of all US companies are owned by women. Women are now responsible for 50% of all stock market investing. Ford's division president said that 23% of American women now earn more than their husbands.
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the number of college degrees bestowed on women rose 28% between 1986 and 1996.
Six out of ten women car owners shopped in auto parts stores in the last year.
With indisputable facts and figures like these, car companies are scurrying to recognize women as THE mainstream car buyer, rather than a cute minority. The effort to appeal to, and communicate with, women buyers now begins at the beginning, with the way the product is designed and made, to how it's marketed and sold.
Some Signs of Enlightened Change:
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, all the US makers have committees of women that advise them on the nuts-and-bolts of design.
The factories have implemented extensive training programs to make men and women more effective at selling cars to women.
The number of women in senior management in the traditionally male auto world is one the rise. In 2000, the American International Auto Dealers Association (AIADA) will have the first woman at the helm of a national auto trade group.
The databases of world carmakers (in part thanks to the information-gathering power of the Internet) are packed with all kinds of incredibly detailed info on people who own certain cars, which they can implement. They supplement this with information from surveys and focus groups to better design products for women.
Designs Geared Toward the Woman Consumer:
Women tend not to accept feature packages, which include items the buyer does not want, but needs to purchase to get the desired feature. Hence, automakers are reducing the number of versions of a vehicle, and putting more convenience features into base models.
Some very large trucks, SUVs and cars are difficult for a more diminutive person to drive comfortably. Because shorter drivers need to sit far enough away from the steering wheel, for the airbags to deploy safely, a number of makers are putting electric pedal extenders in cars and trucks. Ford has been a trailblazer with this, putting it in Taurus, and extending it to the rest of the product line over the next year or so. Previous pedal extenders were like blocks attached to the pedals, but the new-generation is powered electrically to move the pedals a few inches closer to the driver.
Height-adjustable seats to help drivers of different heights and weights.
An easier-to-use and lighter lift-gate. Before, people complained of getting hit on the chin when opening and closing heavy truck lift-gates.
A host of practical features like extra doors on pickups, high-intensity headlights, extra 12-volt outlets for electronic gadgets, side-impact and head protection airbags, and scads of cup-holders, are all directed at women buyers.
Women are statistically the most wary of service and repairs, and cars that go 100,000 miles between tune-ups are a welcome result.
Better quality interior materials. No more bad-quality fabrics, vinyl and plastics. Women have helped spur comfortable fit and finish within and without.
Controls that are user-friendly and easy to read. Buttons, knobs and handles that suit smaller hands and fingers.
Steps and running boards to enter bigger trucks and SUV's easily.
Women statistically rate safety as their key concern. Traction control, front and side airbags standard in many cars, anti-lock brakes, etc. meet those needs.
According to Ford, more women under 30 buy new cars than males the same age because they are preeminently concerned about security. The industry-wide improvement in warranties and roadside assistance plans is very much geared toward a female consumer..
The auto industry is also making strides in programs that re-educate car salespeople to better treat women customers with respect and re-gain their trust. Women complained for decades that when they went into a showroom the salesperson would talk only to the accompanying husband, or steer them toward a lumbering station wagon or family car, even if they stated they wanted a sporty 2-door coupe. The female consumer, studies show, is an extraordinarily loyal consumer when well treated-and a dangerous and disloyal consumer if treated poorly, and dealer re-education has been a crucial development.
Also, there are more women in dealerships selling cars-41% of dealerships had women salespeople in '93, up from 37% in 1991. The Philadelphia Inquirer did note that given that women make up more than 40% of buyers, they should make up more than 5% of the total sales force they currently do. Dealers will tell you that women make excellent-even superior-salespersons, and tend to be more attuned to a consumer's needs. The National Auto Dealer Association reports that women are, however, getting more top management jobs at dealers, and one-fourth of the dealer successors at the large dealer academy are now women. The daughter is increasingly inheriting the family car business.
With $320 billion-plus on the line in annual vehicle sales, automakers and sales channels are hardly willing to disregard the strongest, and fastest-growing segment of buyers: women. All across the global industry, millions each year are being spent to design vehicles women like, even raising money for breast cancer research. If it's not quite utopia quite yet (with lingering memories of sexist treatment from dealers, and no woman at the top position at any automaker) we're a long, long way from La Femme.
Obviously, there's no one, set, defined body of knowledge called "automotive advice for women," or "car design for women," or "women-centered marketing strategies." That narrow concept would prove patronizing and reductive. Women-tall or short, young or old, wealthy or not, from female mechanics to the mechanically incompetent-are as diverse as men. Vehicle information, design and marketing will best represent ALL the kinds of women who buy cars, when more, diverse kinds of women have more input into the informational, design and marketing processes-from the top factory brass to the person who approaches you at an auto parts store.
A recent article in the New York Times predicted that the improved databases on car buyers and the more efficient production methods for building cars in the future, will make vehicles approach custom-ordered objects. For instance, Saab knows that two-thirds of their buyers have dogs and take them for a ride weekly, and VW knows that 80% of New Beetle buyers have personal computers. Auto designers for women (and all groups) will be able to fine-tune consumer preferences--so that a woman, with 2 dogs, that uses the Internet many hours a day, and has two children, and skis-will be able to purchase a precise vehicle that suits her need…They'll probably be a sleek, convertible in pastel shades (without a rain bonnet) that would appeal to that fictional buyer of La Femme, too-but the rest of the features will be useful and well-designed. |
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