It’s a movie cliche we’ve seen a million times: a woman goes to purchase a car, but gets swindled by a sleazy salesman because she supposedly doesn’t know her way around a car. Regardless of whether this was ever an accurate depiction of women’s role in the automobile purchasing process, this is certainly not the case today. To draw on another cliche: the times, they are a-changin’! So, automobile marketers need to embrace mom marketing.
A new report from Cars.com shows that 73% of moms consider themselves to be the sole decision-maker in the vehicle shopping process. And, it makes sense — after all, if you’re going to have to haul Sammy and Stella from soccer practice to swim team to ukulele lessons, then it’s important to make sure you’re able to do it safely and comfortably.
In the era of smartphones, tablets and lightweight laptops, it’s easy to research a car from anywhere with an Internet connection. And, granted that I can spend close to an hour trying to find a good restaurant on Yelp, I can also spend far more time trying to find the right vehicle to meet my needs.
However, the team at our Orlando ad agency has noticed that when you see TV ads for new cars, they’re nearly always marketed toward men. But if moms have so much influence on the car purchasing process, doesn’t it make sense to try to court them through marketing, too?
In viewing a compilation of Superbowl car commercials, I noticed that not one of them featured a female driver. Whether this is more of a response to the automobile marketing landscape or simply just the Superbowl demographic, it still seems strange. After all, of the 111.5 million people who watched the Superbowl, 50 million were female.
Yet for some reason, these car companies don’t seem to care as much about attracting moms. It’s interesting because moms tend to have a lot of say in most major purchases across the spectrum – we’re not just talking about cleaning supplies these days. The purchasing power of millennial moms is estimated at $170 billion. And, if moms are making the car-buying decisions, then why are these companies trying so hard to sell to dad?
Car companies that decide to market to women would have an upper hand in trying to lure their business, since as it stands right now, there is so little competition in that space. And, we’re not talking about trying to sell women on light pink minivans with extra compartments to keep makeup. Women need cars to be useful and practical.
Moms tend to be more concerned with safety and durability, and with all the new safety features the car companies are introducing these days, there’s no reason they shouldn’t think about moms in the marketing process. They also care about gas mileage because lugging children around can put a lot of miles on a car. Focusing on these benefits is a terrific start in helping reach the mom market.
[quote]Women make up more than half of the world’s population, and drive at least half the cars on the road.[/quote]Car companies are already installing the features that make moms happy. As such, the team at our Orlando marketing agency thinks these companies should spend more of their dollars trying to reach moms, who more than ever, are in the driver’s seat in making automobile purchasing decisions.
Contact our team of mom marketing experts today to uncover ways to reach this powerful target audience!
