Did you know that a car can get you from one place to another?
That message may have been lost lately, what with car commercials so focused on their high-tech offerings that it would seem going for a drive is like living inside an iPad.
There are ads demonstrating gee-whiz technology – vehicles that park themselves, others that show a hands-free Facebook status update or an onboard entertainment console that automatically syncs with a driver’s mobile phone – and even one or two spots that seek to position the latest generation of cars on a continuum of scientific breakthroughs reaching all the way back to the discovery of electricity and then forward to this season’s hot mobile devices.
Touting technology has become the car industry’s latest moon shot for grabbing market share. Last summer, Nissan kicked off a campaign promising, “Innovation for all.” Toyota is operating a contest known as “Ideas for Good” that asks consumers to come up with new non-automotive applications for some of its proprietary technologies. And Hyundai is currently in the midst of rolling out its own new innovation-oriented tagline: “New thinking. New possibilities.”
Ford F-N may be making the biggest bet of all on innovation, trying to position it as the core of its new brand. “Thirty-two per cent of consumers are buying our vehicles today for one reason: because of our technology,” said David Mondragon, chief executive officer of Ford Motor Co. of Canada, who spoke on Wednesday at a conference organized by the Canadian Marketing Association.
“The whole area of innovation, it has been a somewhat ubiquitous theme over the last 12-18 months,” explained Chris Travell, the vice-president of the automotive group at market researcher Maritz Canada, which counts most of the domestic car companies as clients. “The manufacturers are wrestling – they use that term – for the white space, and innovation has been seen as the white space.”
Referring to Silicon Valley’s shiny, happy brand, he said of the car companies, “They’re borrowing what’s going on in California.”
But here’s the odd thing: On the whole, car companies aren’t pitching these smart cars to those with deep pockets; rather, they’re making a play for the low-margin first-time buyers.
Among its many other innovations, Ford Motor Co. has integrated Sync, a Windows-based system that enables hands-free operation of entertainment functions and phone calls, in 80 per cent of the cars that it sells, including many of its entry-level models.
“The drive behind this is seamless communication for consumers, especially young consumers,” Mr. Mondragon said. “The biggest turnoff to a twentysomething consumer is to put their life on hold when they sit in a car. And what does it mean to put their life on hold? To get disconnected when they get in the car, to have a system that will not allow you to sit there and e-mail, read your BlackBerry, talk on the phone. So you have to have a seamless transition from your home to your transportation device, to your workspace. Or to your play space.”
“Our vehicles are becoming much more than a transportation device,” Mr. Mondragon added. “They’re communication and entertainment devices.”
To get a sense of the importance that brands are placing on technological innovation as a differentiator, take a stroll through this year’s Super Bowl ads. One spot for the Chevrolet Volt provided a short history of breakthroughs (Benjamin Franklin’s experiment with a kite and a key and a lightning bolt; an early model black-and-white television; a NASA rocket launch; a Jimi Hendrix electric guitar riff; ending with the development of the electric car). Another for its sister brand, the new Chevy Cruze, featured a young man who, while driving away at the end of a date, checks his Facebook news feed through GM’s voice-activated OnStar data system, and learns his date has posted an endearing message for him.
