The days of judging people based on the car they own are over
Would you judge somebody by which brand of phone they use? Or by who made their TV, or fridge, washing machine or dishwasher?
I think not. I’m not even entirely sure I know what make my fridge is and I see it more frequently than I see my family.
I know how I got it: the old one broke and I found a used one, advertised by a nice elderly couple nearby.
That part, the human side of things, I remember well, but the brand name on the front? Despite seeing it several times a day for the past decade, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a Bosch. Hold on: I’ll check…
Yes, it’s a Bosch Classixx, to the fridge enthusiast presumably a name synonymous with keeping food cold and having a light on when the door’s open.
I wouldn’t like to be judged on who I am as a result of having a Classixx, beyond being thought of as someone who doesn’t like rapidly souring milk.
I am, however, the kind of person who, if not quite judging people, thinks they can tell things about others by which car they drive.
That used to be fairly common. So common and easy that I think most of us did it: boy racer drives x (a BMW probably), slow duffer drives y (a Skoda, perhaps) – preconceptions that held easily because it’s not like someone was cross-shopping one against the other.
Until, that is, they were. I’m told a story of a 1990s Hyundai manager saying he wanted buyers to put the H-branded key on a pub table and for it to be as respected as if it were a Mercedes or other premium brand.
How, of course, his audience laughed at the time. Now, though? Now I just made a video comparing a Hyundai with a Porsche.
Earlier this year, a mate of mine had on his £1200-a-month company lease shortlist a Lotus, a Range Rover and a Kia. Lotus once made only sports cars and Kia just made value family cars.
Today, they meet in the common ground of £80,000 electric SUVs, and I honestly couldn’t say which of them is more highly thought of in the field.
Throw into these traditional brand mix-ups (relatively) new entrants like Tesla and Rivian from one direction and BYD, new MG and a billion other Chinese car makers from another and, if I were a marketer, I wouldn’t be at all confident that the reasons people bought my cars 20 or 10 years ago is the reason they’re going to do so tomorrow.
I think that’s why many companies are going retro heavy, as per the Renault 5: “Trust us: we’ve been really good at this for decades.” No doubt. But is that enough?
It might be for a while. Meanwhile, BMW keeps telling people its cars are good to drive and Audi says it’s a technology leader, messages it has been promoting to today’s buyers for decades.
Most of the nondescript Chinese EVs I see are driven by old duffers who apparently have no interest in cars or driving; the sort of people who would have bought a Proton back in the day.
But what of tomorrow’s buyers? There are more companies making cars than ever and they’re all better at it than ever, so even if Zoomers and Alphas and whoever follows them do care about brands, they’ll be on the receiving end of a lot more advertising and messaging.
It’s inevitable some of that will cut through. More concerningly for brands, though, is what if they don’t care? What if they think of cars like I think of a fridge or a dishwasher?
There’ll be hundreds of cars and they’ll mostly be the same, all of them doing the equivalent of keeping your milk cold.
I suppose, then, if I was in charge of a company that over decades had established a strong image, I’d keep telling people what it is, very simply, and very loudly, and hope it sticks. And if I didn’t have a brand like that, I’d be quietly terrified.