Buying's Laws Of Attraction

The Age

Saturday November 1, 2008

Leesha McKenny

Car makers are keen to snare young women drivers, writes Leesha McKenny.

CAR makers have long wanted to know what makes young, female buyers tick.

They know who they are; tertiary students or those working in their first entry-level job, looking for the safety of a three-year warranty and a small loan - something a parent would agree to.

What, then, fits the profile for the typical, young, female car buyer?

Stephanie Conway, 19, is pretty sure she knows. She got her licence when she was 17, plans to study next year and is now on her second car. The first was a blue Suzuki Swift, but this one's a 2008 black Volkswagen Golf.

"I got it because it was in the price range I was looking for; it's a good small car, it's pretty modern and stylish," she says.

"I looked at a Subaru in the same kind of range and I wasn't really too keen. (My father and I) looked at the Mazda2 as well, the new one. But I didn't really like the look of it; it was a bit too modern-looking. It looks a bit Star Treky."

Conway says she doesn't really share her brothers' or father's interest in cars but she knows what she likes and why. She can rattle off the names of some of the models, invariably all small cars, that her friends drive.

Chalisa Morrison, a senior designer at Toyota, thinks Conway is fairly typical of other young women. "They'll imagine themselves in (a car) and think about whether it suits their image and whether it's somewhere they'd like to spend time and bring their friends," she says. "So they're a more fun and exciting type of market group than mature, older females."

Morrison, who researches social and cultural trends to help formulate Toyota's approach to them, says today's car market is much more responsive and welcoming to young females than it was even five years ago.

"Looking at cars 10 years ago, I think it was still very much a male-dominated field, almost male protected, so women weren't really encouraged to be interested," she says.

Technology and social change play their part, but the reason behind the shift is simple according to Toyota's figures: women aged between 20 and 30 buy more new cars than young men.

"There are more young women with more disposable income and earning higher wages; that's caused a huge flood of female-focused products into the market," Morrison says.

Lenore Fletcher, senior manager of corporate communications at Mitsubishi, says all car makers are looking to target the younger market, and they're all coming to the same conclusion - that young women go for small cars. "Two of our vehicles in particular have an appeal and you'll find this with all car companies, it's the light segment and the small-car segment," she says.

"If you look at some of the cars, particularly in the light-car segment, there really is a huge push towards appealing to a female audience, the advertising can be quite specifically female-orientated."

Evidence of this trend is evident in brands that have traditionally steered clear of the younger market. Nissan's Micra, a hatch, is advertised like a fashion accessory, complete with an underseat storage compartment for shoes.

The Micra comes in one specification - an automatic, five-door model with a 1.4-litre engine - but it comes in 11 colours, including "Paris blue" and "Shanghai violet".

Nissan's general manager of marketing and public affairs, Ross Booth, says the car maker hopes young women will see the Micra as an extension of themselves. "The positioning is for young females."

Is there a perception that young females are more easily won over by colour and style ahead of performance? Toyota's Morrison says that although interior ambience and practicality are among the most important factors, so are safety and fuel efficiency.

For younger women, she says the "fun to drive" factor also has a role.

"They want their car to say something about them," she says. "Whether it's 'I wanted a small car that doesn't use much petrol' or, 'isn't this a cool car, it's bright yellow or bright pink, aren't I trendy?' "

Honda, whose previous entry-level model was the Civic, has now sold about 50,000 of the Jazz five-door hatch since it was introduced here in 2002. Public relations manager, Mark Higgins, says the newest model is already generating more interest from younger drivers - a pitch that is reflected in its advertising campaign.

"It's very much aimed at young female buyers, " he says. "It's (got) cute, funky looks, it's very fuel efficient and it's cheap to run. It's the Honda brand, and the cache of the Honda brand is very, very strong."

At $16,990, it has been an attractive proposition, but a significant proportion of buyers are older drivers looking to downsize to a reliable, affordable car. "I think that the formula we have for the car is pretty right, in terms of its size and its packaging and all the rest,"says Higgins. "As marketing demands change, we just have to make sure that we lead those trends.".

Morrison says information about cars is now easy to find and far from intimidating for young buyers familiar with the ubiquitousness of the internet.

"So that's a big change as well, just the accessibility of the information," she says. "A young female doesn't have to go into a car dealership to find out about a car or into Prada to find out about a jacket. They surf the net, they find out."

But Sarah Imray of Mazda says this reflects changes to the way that car makers try to engage with a younger market, regardless of their gender.

"Younger people are going online increasingly and we're doing a lot to make it easy for them to access information - where they want it, when they want it," she says.

Morrison suggests the next decade will see a more fragmented market.

She says 24-year-old male buyers are quite happy opting for a Mazda2 Genki rather than the V6 Commodore they might have been expected to go for a generation ago, no longer worried about upsetting any of the social expectations tied to a car purchase. "Some of the boundaries are being crossed in younger generations," she says. "You've got various shades of young people intermixing, and you've got different cultures intermixing, so it's harder and harder to (point to a car and say) 'this is female'."

© 2008 The Age

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