USA TODAY International Edition
This GM brand leads the industry in sales to women
Brand ‘ gets it right’ with women in company, too
And that’s no accident, as the automaker targets women with its design and marketing.
Ann Logan, 69, in many ways represents a typical Buick owner: She values functionality, affordability and safety – the attributes many female consumers seek when buying a car, more so than men do, research says.
Logan of Dayton, Ohio, has owned Buick cars for 20 years and won’t stray. She credits their safety features for saving her and her husband’s lives in the early morning hours of March 17, 2018.
Logan was driving through an intersection when a big brown blur, which she said looked like a building, suddenly smashed into her 2018 Buick Encore SUV. That “building” was actually a dump truck going about 45 mph when it struck the passenger side, where her husband was seated.
Her week- old Encore was totaled, but Logan and her husband writhed out of the wreckage unharmed.
“We had to crawl under the airbags to get out,” Logan said. “But everything we wanted and needed to protect us was there. The car wrapped itself around us. So we’re stuck on Buicks.”
Buick is General Motors’ mid- luxury brand. It sold 162,741 cars in the United States last year, which accounted for only 6% of GM’s total U. S. sales, but Buick dominates GM’s brands in another way: It leads the car industry in sales to women based on its share of the brand. It also is attracting more résumés from female engineers wanting to work there.
Fifty- six percent of Buick’s sales are made to women; no other brand comes close, said Marc Bland, IHS Markit’s chief diversity officer. Given that women make or influence 85% of all new vehicle purchases, that gives Buick an edge, Bland said. In Logan’s case, her husband has switched to Buick, too.
“For too long, automakers have looked at a woman’s position as dependent on a man and that is not true in 2020 and beyond,” Bland said. “Buick is the best mark for GM on how to get it right for women.”
A mom designing for moms
Part of Buick’s success with female buyers lies with the women at Buick who are designing the vehicles and marketing them.
Take Sandya Jackson, Buick’s senior design release engineer in interiors. At just 5 feet tall, Jackson, 34, fits a part of
the demographic Buick targets.
“I will do some of the modeling for us when we’re designing,” said Jackson, who is in the fifth percentile for height, meaning 95% of people are taller than she is. “We do a lot of analysis to make sure that every single occupant can reach the pedals, reach the touchscreen … and make sure the interior is accessible for all occupants.”
Jackson was the lead designer on the instrument panel in Buick’s new 2021 Envision compact SUV, which is launching now. She created a “drivercentric cockpit” with a touchscreen that tilts toward the driver instead of facing straight out as most do.
“I want it to be something I would drive,” Jackson said. “I’m a mom with two kids, so the most important thing to me is safety. So when I started the process of design, the biggest thing was the touchscreen. We tilted it so that it’s easier for the woman to reach and utilize its features. You can connect to a lot of things through it, but still focus on driving.”
Storage and style
Jackson was born and raised in Detroit. Her dad was an engineer, but she concedes she was never a “car person” growing up. Still, she wanted to be the engineer who designs the parts that everyone touches.
She focused on interiors with functionality and comfort, key attributes women want when they consider buying a car, according to a 2019- 2020 Kelley Blue Book Brand Watch, which surveyed 12,394 men and 3,715 women on the factors that are most likely to influence a car purchase decision.
The survey found that men’s purchase decisions are more influenced by a vehicle’s exterior styling, technology, ruggedness and prestige. For women, it is all about affordability, driving performance, durability, reliability, reputation, safety, fuel efficiency and driving comfort, the survey said.
“As a woman, we have so much stuff, so we need storage, but we want it to be sleek and clean,” Jackson said. “I want a place for everything.”
Meet the dual- wing armrest in the center console that she designed. It splits open like a book with space to store a purse without disrupting the passenger using the arm rest on the other side. GM offers the dual- wing armrest in some cars in other brands, but it is heavily featured across Buick’s lineup.
“Storage is a big deal for this customer,” Jackson said. “It’s cool and it looks unique, different and stylish. That’s another thing that is a big selling point for this vehicle. As a mom, as a woman, I still want to have some style.”
So does Logan, who said one of her favorite features in her 2018 Encore is a “little drawer” tucked under the passenger seat.
“You can easily throw stuff into it like cosmetics, extra keys, pens, perfumes,” Logan said. “You don’t use it that often, but it’s very handy. This is under the seat and you can use it, but keep the car clean.”
Buick and Bugatti
Automakers realize that women have been an underserved market for too long, Bland said.
“Bugatti is testament to women’s true purchasing power,” Bland said. “Half of all Bugattis sold are sold to women.”
Bugatti, a French ultra- luxury brand, sold four new cars in the United States last year that cost about $ 2.5 million each, but two of those cars were indeed sold to women, Bland said.
IHS Markit, which provides insights based on new and used vehicle registrations, ranks the following brands with the greatest share of female buyers for their share of brand:
• Buick ( 56.1%) Mitsubishi ( 54%)
• Mini ( 53%)
• Nissan ( 52%)
• Hyundai ( 52%)
• Kia ( 52%)
• Lexus ( 51%)
There is a tie at about 50% between Mazda, Bugatti, Honda and Subaru, Bland said.
“Buick has been in the top three with women for about a decade since they reinvented the brand,” Bland said, referring to the introduction of the Encore in 2013, more updated designs and a recent shift to becoming an all- SUV lineup.
Inside GM, Cadillac is No. 2 with 43.9% of their sales made to women, which is above the industry average of 43%, Bland said.
“That has a lot to do with the product offering and the SUVs, the XT4, XT5 and the XT7 with the third row ... that can accommodate shopping, groceries and fits the lifestyle,” Bland said.
But Chevrolet misses the industry benchmark with 36% of its sales made to women, “so that’s a huge opportunity for GM, and GMC trails Chevy at 29%. But GMC is marketed as ‘ Professional Grade’ where everything is rough and tough,” Bland said.
Buick marketing is centered on women, the designs are female- friendly and it hits that price point women want, Bland said.
“The Encore is small but big enough to meet and exceed the needs of the female buyer. It has four doors, some luxury features and the hatch and a great price point starting at $ 23,200,” Bland said.
The Enclave full- size SUV starts at $ 40,000 and the new Envision starts at $ 31,800.
Encore takes center stage
Buick has always “skewed” female, said another leading lady at Buick, Kate Hrabovsky, advertising and media oper
ations manager.
“We saw the economic power of females. It’s a very valuable consumer to us, with their earning power and influence,” Hrabovsky said. “Our latest brand health report showed a 3% increase in positive opinion among women.”
When Buick began a transition to all SUVs, it had women in mind, Hrabovsky said. It introduced the Enclave in 2008 and then the subcompact Encore SUV in 2013, which has been the brand’s biggest seller.
IHS’ Bland said the Encore’s sales alone last year made it the 79th top- selling vehicle out of 493 models sold in the nation.
“To be in the top 20% is huge,” Bland said. “But it’s No. 64 for African Americans and that is the only consuming group where African American women out consume their male counterparts for all vehicle purchases.“
Logan remembers Buick’s shift vividly. She had been driving the LaCrosse sedan for years, but in 2014 when she went to her dealer, Bob Ross Auto Group, to trade it in, Buick didn’t sell the sedan anymore. Then an Encore in the showroom caught her eye.
“I never owned an SUV,” Logan said. “I got into the car and I knew that was what I wanted forever. It was small enough, compact enough and I do a lot of decorating and helping people and I could put everything I needed in that car and do what I needed to do.”
A legacy shift
Buick began courting women buyers in 2013 across all mediums.
Since 2017, Buick has marketed its vehicle lineup in The Skimm, a subscription- only newsletter aimed at female millennials. Buick marketers incorporate vehicles and messages into the newsletter’s print and video reports in a subtle, almost product- placement way. Recently, Buick has started working on sponsoring podcasts for the newsletter, Hrabovsky said.
“They’re an ongoing partner in our media plan,” Hrabovsky said. “It is an affluent, educated audience. The newsletter started out of New York – so there’s a heavy following in that area, but you are also hitting the entire U. S.“
Buick has also done product placements with various TV shows. It put the Enclave and Encore on ABC’s “Blackish” over the past few years and paired the Enclave with actress Reese Witherspoon’s character in “Big Little Lies” on HBO.
“The show itself turned into a cultural phenomenon and it had a powerful female cast,” Hrabovsky said. “The car had such a prominent role in Season 1, we joked it was an added character.”
During Season 2 of “Big Little Lies,” Twitter hosted a live aftershow for each episode. Buick sponsored it and featured the Enclave during that too, Hrabovsky said.
Buick has a strong presence on social media site Pinterest where it pushes to introduce Buick to a younger demographic to “shift the legacy perception of Buick,” she said.
“Buick faces a big challenge around communication and there is a dated view as to what we offer and our challenge is to disrupt that false familiarity,” Hrabovsky said.
Hello Sunshine
As part of that, GM is starting a new Owner Influencer Program, Hrabovsky said.
“We have influential Buick owners advertise for our brand to combat the challenge we hear that, ‘ No one I know drives a Buick,’ ” Hrabovsky said. “It started in 2018 as a test and was so successful it continues today. They are not celebrities, but they have substantial followings.”
One of Buick’s biggest wins is a new partnership formed last fall with Hello Sunshine, the media company founded by Witherspoon in 2016 to focus on women.
“It shines the most positive light on women,” Hrabovsky said. “It’s a cutting edge collaboration. It’s vehicle integration in Hello Sunshine feature films and content they develop and Buick as the exclusive partner in Reese’s Book Club.”
Buick vehicles will be cast into roles in upcoming content Hello Sunshine produces, Hrabovsky said.
Women wanting work
Buick also offers a Reese Witherspoon Book Club App that was developed at GM by a female- led engineering team, Hrabovsky said.
Daphne Zargar was the lead engineer on the team that included two other female developers, she said. The app is on all 2018 models and beyond, which is about 600,000 Buicks on the road.
The driver picks a book that Witherspoon recommends and the book is read to the driver. The only cost is for the book through an audio books account, which is a $ 14.95- per- month subscription, Zargar said.
The benefit to Buick is big. Witherspoon is an influencer with 20 million followers on Twitter, Zargar said.
“Because it’s so new, we don’t have data on how many women buyers it’s attracted,” Zargar said.
“But anecdotally, I am a hiring manager on the software engineering side, once Buick put out the PR and social media on this app, it’s really helped us attract female engineers and female software developers because they see the female talent building products like these.”
Zargar said job applications from women specifically seeking to work for Buick have jumped by 15% to 20% over the past five years.
“We’re hiring more female testers and engineers just recently, and we’re going to add two more new teams to the mobile app team,” Zargar said.
“When you see others like you in those spaces you know that it can be a great opportunity for you to shine.”