Why we drive what we drive
“We’ve done an enormous amount of research in the automotive area that taps into the right brain and gets into the emotional mind of the consumer,” says Dr. Charles Kenny, whose company, Kenny & Associates,
has helped GM, Nissan and Chrysler market their cars, as well as quizzed more than 50,000 people on their
automotive purchases. “What we drive is completely emotionally driven. It’s driven by ego needs and by
self-identity needs. The bottom line is, how does the car makes you feel?” The Times asked Kenny about a few cars that enjoy special popularity in L.A.
-- Nancy Rommelmann
The new Humvee, the H2, seems a young man’s fancy.
“Driving a Humvee makes a young man feel more masculine, more attractive to the opposite sex -- but it’s not just about sex, it’s really about being a man. An 18-year-old kid doesn’t know how to be a man, so he’s hoping the car will do it for him.”
And high-end luxury cars?
“One of the prime motivators for people to go out and buy the biggest Mercedes or Infiniti or Rolls-Royce is because they want to tell everybody that sees them in the car how much money they make and how successful they are. But at the very base of it, they’re doing it to prove to themselves that they have made it, that they’ve arrived.”
What drives SUV popularity?
“Psychologically and emotionally, these vehicles -- at least for women who drive them -- are an attempt to assert independence. We’ve done a lot of research in the area of car care. There is a huge gender difference. The maintenance and caring for cars is a masculine thing, and the same woman who is asserting her independence by driving this huge SUV also, the minute she has a flat tire, turns to her husband to help her.”
Why the minivan’s bad rap?
“What is it about the minivan that makes people feel they wouldn’t even be seen in one? It really goes right to the conflict between independence and dependence that is inside everybody. People who eschew a minivan are conflicted. They’re afraid that if they buy a minivan, they will become tied down to a family, to other expectations, and they won’t be able to express their self-identity.”
How about hybrid cars?
“There is only a very small percentage of people who have any interest whatsoever in vehicles like that, so long as they are more expensive or below the standards of a regular internal combustion engine car. Seventy percent of people will tell you all day how they want to buy to save the Earth, and then go out and make a singular, selfish purchase based on what’s best for them; that’s just human nature.”
What’s the pickup truck’s appeal?
“Trucks are inextricably tied in with male gender identity and masculinity: what a man does, the work that he can accomplish. When I worked with contractors, one guy had a Dodge, one guy had a Ford, one guy had a Chevy, and they’d argue about which truck was best, and it was all about good and evil. It’s not ‘who’s the sexiest guy,’ it’s ‘who is the most capable man.’ There’s a big difference. “
OK, sports cars and middle-aged men. What’s the attraction?
“The middle-aged guy is going through a phase in life where youth and vitality as well as the sexuality are slipping away from him. The dreams and fantasies he had growing up may never have been fulfilled, so he hits middle age and, bingo, he buys a sports car, because it represents youth and vitality and possibility. But it’s not just middle-aged men. There are a lot of new car purchases by men at the birth of their first child -- which they feel perhaps is going to tie them down. These needs overlap into convertibles, the need for freedom. These needs are universal. Everybody’s got them.”
What do you drive, Dr. Kenny?
“I proudly drive a Plymouth Grand Voyager minivan, 1999.”
