Originally used as basic transportation for home and business, the automobile has become much more popular since the Model T Ford days. Today, it supports a major industry and a wonderful convenience and better standard of living for so many. But the negative aspects of this great invention are now becoming more apparent.
Consider the mess cars make of our beautiful natural world as they spread fumes and noise into a once serene environment. And in their production and usage, cars chew up Mother Nature’s resources at an increasing rate.
As in other industries, the car companies’ drive towards achieving greater profits has changed how cars are produced, marketed, and sold to consumers. The product manufacturers want to sell most is not your basic transportation needs, and the advertising departments work feverishly to influence your choices. They have done a good marketing job over the past decades as new owners proudly park impressive, shiny, newer-styled cars in their driveways, much like the TV commercials.
READ MORE :
- Buying and Selling Automobile Dealerships
- How to enjoy a premium VPN service and watch your favorite channels in a hassle-free manner
- Awario | Helps You To Monitor Your Brand
- Airline and Vacation Travel Tips – Easy Travel Checklist
- Head Lice Treatment – The Difference between Nits and Dandruff
As in other merchandising areas, automobiles are marketed aggressively for maximum corporate sales and profits. As long as companies need to increase their bottom line, their efforts to sell products, good and sometimes bad, will be strenuous in the presence of strong competition.
This bigger, pricier car sales strategy is not new. In a dealer showroom in the 50s, I had my mind set on a certain economy model, but I was continually steered away from it. The salesman refused to sell me the smaller model, and I left. Thirty-five years later, in a showroom helping my daughter with her concerns about choice and cost, the salesman turned to me and asked, “Who’s buying this car, you or her?” As we headed to another dealer, I remarked that he must have some personal problems, perhaps at home, maybe with his sales manager.
The automobile industry is a prime example of how intelligent marketing can sell maximum corporate benefits. Consider the car commercials on TV; they are not seriously trying to sell small, plain autos that use the least resources. Most are for bigger, flashier styles with extra features your friends will envy. Hybrids or electric cars may lead in future years, but they will be made expensively and sold to generate maximum profit. Most, by far, will not be modest in design.
Along with continually remodeled styles, the newest products can include frivolous gadgets and features that are good selling points if marketed just right. And there has been a strategy where a model’s size grows year-by-year until it’s time to buy again; then your favorite model has grown in size, features, and cost, and you have an ante up considerably more than expected. What will your neighbors think if the choice is downsizing to a more practical purchase than the one you want to trade in?
Car commercials are among the noisiest on TV and can interfere with family conversation if not muted. But the invasive, annoying clamor attracts attention and results; it’s how much advertising works. Rude and in-your-face works for them. In targeting the young and young at heart, commercials often sensationalize performances showing high-speed maneuvers on city streets and highways. They are sending the wrong message, considering the lives lost to excessive driving speeds. This is insensitive and harmful, but it sells products. One has to wonder where the corporate manager’s conscience is hiding; perhaps ethics is a detriment in rising to top managerial positions in some businesses.
Many years of this massive marketing effort’s general outcome is that cars are now commonly purchased for superficial status, even though they may be too costly when excessive to the owner’s budget or needs.
Unfortunately, consumers are so infatuated with these environmentally unfriendly, sleek, roomy gadget-featured ‘Look At Me’ cars in the world’s richer areas. But that’s what they have been telling us to buy most days of the year, and we are like sheep as we are herded toward industry showrooms.
We are being taken for a ride.
Marketing and branding are continually at work, and so is the ongoing push to consume more steel, plastic, oil, and gas. But why would the industry promote a basic product representing modest, caring, and friendly lifestyles when it would shrink business?
On TV during an earlier oil crisis, a smiling spokesperson from the Automobile Association defended why they aren’t marketing smaller cars. “People couldn’t just sell their cars and buy smaller ones.” The TV commercial immediately following the news byte was for a flashy full-size SUV. Funny and grim.
Friendlier vehicles are coming off the design board as public interest in the environment rises. Can consumers resist the persuasion towards pizazz and extra extras they could drive into the workplace parking lot? Can we practically expect them to change to economy autos? Granted, there is a case for increased comfort for longer commutes, but where is the practical limit?
Let’s face it: this inefficient, costly, and unnatural way to get around must be changed. It may be necessary to own a car to get to work, school, and shopping; that’s how planning has designed our urban layouts, but that has turned out to be one big mistake.
Even if we are inclined to use public transportation, it probably isn’t practical to use it if the government has other interests. And if it is available and convenient, it probably still isn’t what most would consider; everyone else is driving, and Peter has a new Super Spitter XYZ!!
The public’s desire to improve how we live and treat the environment will change. Still, it will not be easy if we continually face massive persuasions to consume more. This necessary means of transportation needs a review of its design, marketing, and effects on society. The average person does not need luxury on wheels when spending only a few hours a week in the car. Nor does the car require fast speed and polluting power to drive within the speed limit. A description of the fuel-efficient car should include The smallest vehicle that will suit your transportation needs in reasonable comfort.
The automobile must take a less destructive and healthier place in our society, but can it happen? When the car industry hit a brick wall during the financial crisis, the bailed-out industry reorganized, redesigned, and retooled for energy efficiency to some degree. Then came the familiar and glitzy ‘Show Me Off’ ads. There is little advertising of small and simple transportation – so they can later proclaim that people don’t want to buy them.
Why not review your automobile requirements to see if you can make some changes to a more basic, downsized selection? And consider a reduction in usage. If public transit is available, give it a try. I have been positively surprised at how convenient and relaxing transit riding can be. The ride is free time, and there are no expensive parking requirements when you arrive.
Businesses must continue making money, so a drive into a brick wall may lie ahead unless politicians make a serious effort to tackle these problems for society and nature.
