Would you judge somebody by which brand of phone they use? Or by who made their TV, or fridge, washing machine or dishwasher?
I think not. I’m not even entirely sure I know what make my fridge is and I see it more frequently than I see my family.
I know how I got it: the old one broke and I found a used one, advertised by a nice elderly couple nearby.
That part, the human side of things, I remember well, but the brand name on the front? Despite seeing it several times a day for the past decade, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a Bosch. Hold on: I’ll check…
Yes, it’s a Bosch Classixx, to the fridge enthusiast presumably a name synonymous with keeping food cold and having a light on when the door’s open.
I wouldn’t like to be judged on who I am as a result of having a Classixx, beyond being thought of as someone who doesn’t like rapidly souring milk.
I am, however, the kind of person who, if not quite judging people, thinks they can tell things about others by which car they drive.
That used to be fairly common. So common and easy that I think most of us did it: boy racer drives x (a BMW probably), slow duffer drives y (a Skoda, perhaps) – preconceptions that held easily because it’s not like someone was cross-shopping one against the other.
Until, that is, they were. I’m told a story of a 1990s Hyundai manager saying he wanted buyers to put the H-branded key on a pub table and for it to be as respected as if it were a Mercedes or other premium brand.
How, of course, his audience laughed at the time. Now, though? Now I just made a video comparing a Hyundai with a Porsche.
Earlier this year, a mate of mine had on his £1200-a-month company lease shortlist a Lotus, a Range Rover and a Kia. Lotus once made only sports cars and Kia just made value family cars.
Today, they meet in the common ground of £80,000 electric SUVs, and I honestly couldn’t say which of them is more highly thought of in the field.
Throw into these traditional brand mix-ups (relatively) new entrants like Tesla and Rivian from one direction and BYD, new MG and a billion other Chinese car makers from another and, if I were a marketer, I wouldn’t be at all confident that the reasons people bought my cars 20 or 10 years ago is the reason they’re going to do so tomorrow.
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Watched the video,listened to two guys who knowingly or not are passing middle age because of their theory,yes, the sound isn't great, needs turned up a notch, or, stop going cheap on the recording equipment,im not totally anti EV, ICE cars won't disappear anytime soon, you could argue that since the advent of EV power and thus the availability of Supercar BHP to more drivers, the instant torque at the press of a pedal has taken some of the gloss of owning a Porsche or a Ferrari, maybe that's the way it should have been looked at?
Hyundai and Kia have taken the EV opportunity by producing boldly designed quality products to change the perception of who they are. They have done this while stretching the brand (successfully) into ever higher price points. All achieved with product, product, product.
We know a British company trying to reinvent itself at a higher price, don't we. Albeit with little to-no product. Hmmm.
Thanks to modern manufacturing techniques, many manufacturers are catching up on the quality front, and some have caught up. Cars are becoming evermore the same inside, a steering wheel, two screens, effectively a variable resistor under your right foot, and somewhere to rest your left elbow. They shoot forward in much the same manner too.