Youth Marketing! Is this automaker BS and hype or is it something they are serious about? That’s today’s CarNewsCafe Podcast topic, since we all know the importance of marketing cars and making them appealing to “young people.” What does it mean when automakers say, “We need to appeal to young people!” and what does it mean when they say, “We ARE appealing to young people!”
The catalyst for this discussion started when Aaron and Adam were commenting in article Adam wrote about Lincoln’s recent shake-up in the senior leadership with the appointment of Kumar Galhotra. Galhtora will serve as Lincolns’ new president and Ford’s vice president. Lincoln hasn’t exactly been on the cutting edge and has been lagging behind other luxury auto brands. Of course, like a lot of luxury automakers, they have had youth marketing efforts with a tour of the 2015 Lincoln MKC designers trying to encourage yuppies to the Lincoln brand.
Talk is easy while action is tough. Do these actions from Lincoln and other automakers like Buick and Cadillac show they are serious? Could they just be positioning themselves as “the car” you always wanted to buy but couldn’t? Is youth marketing really old people marketing… since let’s face it all people get old eventually. Not even the the branding masters, Harley-Davidson, can escape the eventually onslaught of trying to appeal to a younger audience. Hence, the company touring it’s LiveWire electric motorcycle across the US.
We touch on all these topics and more in the CarNewsCafe Podcast 44 on youth marketing. Surprisingly Aaron Turpen and Nicolas Zart dive into this youth marketing debate with more gusto than I did. You wouldn’t expect this since they both could have been in the Dodge commercial celebrating 100 years with 100 year old people. 🙂
If you have any thoughts about youth marketing and how automakers do marketing with young people these days, please let us know below.
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If you enjoyed this week’s podcast listen, please check out past episodes “My First Car” and “Manual vs Automatic.” We are sure you will enjoy them.
