Trying to define a generation
Targeting millennials is condescending
Every car manuf acturer can t ell you exactly who is buying their cars. Their gender, their age, their income and their lifestyle. Every new car is aimed with precision at that target, though they usually choose descriptors that are inclusive, even if their product is exclusive.
But every once in a while carmakers — and almost all fall victim to this at one time or another — can’t seem to resist announcing who should buy their car instead of telling you why you should.
Oh sure, for some products there’s no point in camouflaging who you’re putting in your crosshairs: walk- in tubs or Flintstones vitamins have pretty defined buyers.
Chrysler has boldly unveiled, at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show ( CES) show in Las Vegas, what it thinks my sons will be wanting. At some point. Because they were born into an age bracket slushily called millennials, those currently between 20 and 36 by most measures. While the people who decide such t hings struggle to decide just what a millennial really is, Chrysler is deciding not only who they are but what they will want in the future.
The Portal is a high- tech, connected, accessible, innovative car of the future. Well, minivan. Its easily reconfigured interior imagines a time when the driver won’t need to be at the steer- ing wheel, and can even get rid of it. Those millennial offspring can take their own selfies, everyone can listen to their own music and/or noise independently and a hundred other things are on offer to keep a family as far apart as possible when they have to be together. It might not be the minivan we’ve always had, but it is definitely the minivan we’ve always wanted. Ask any person who has been the target of a minivan ad campaign.
The Portal campaign is “by Millennials for Millennials” and it’s trying too hard. We get it. But why discount or shut off huge swaths of a market with lim- iting messaging? The low clearance and huge doors on both sides scream something else to this non- millennial: accessibility. This concept, in whatever iteration it hits showrooms, won’t be cheap. Those Generation Xers will be coming into that baby boomer money right around the time their knees get creaky and their backs get sore.
Hyundai introduced the Veloster at Detroit years ago with a bunch of teenagers hopping in and out to hiphop music. It was a darling presentation — but 18- yearolds rarely buy new cars.
Many brands have painted a car pink and thrown in extra mirrors because that’s what women want, right? Wrong. Just make good cars at a fair price and stop worrying about whether I’ ll break my nails on the door handle.
I prefer what Subaru did back in the 1990s, when it simply configured ads that acknowledged people who were already buying their products: lesbians. The work was inclusive and, at the time, bold. But it was also proof that you can pitch to your existing loyalty crowd while going after conquest sales in other demographics. Subarus have long been the choice of the sporty, outdoorsy crew, all roof racks and all- wheel drive in the sun- to- ski l andscape. Ad campaigns where some of their most loyal buyers recognized themselves was a smart move.
We will never see the end of overhyped ad campaigns — from every corner of all industries — for offerings that often disappoint. What carmakers need to do is make quality products that speak for themselves. They should also be cautious about defining an entire generation of people who are as different from each other as they are from those who came before them.
Despite the Portal’s conc eptualized r ebuttal of everything you know about minivans, some reviews still couldn’t resist falling down the soccer- mom- description well. That’s why FCA has pushed so hard to call it something else, but sometimes the product really can speak for itself.
I showed the Portal to three millennials, two of whom are avid car fans and the other who envisions having a couple of kids by the time some iteration of this might roll off a production line. They agreed the styling was cool, if a little too futuristic. But all the tech hype? They shrugged. They’re used to this, and expect it from their phones and computers, but didn’t seem as excited as FCA might like them to be.
Said one: “Why can’t kids just look out the window anymore?”
ON OFFER TO KEEP A FAMILY AS FAR APART AS POSSIBLE WHEN THEY HAVE TO BE TOGETHER.