Interesting Feed Post #1: Men and Women and Cars

In doing some of my research for team Toyota and the topic of promotion I came across this article on CnnMoney entitled Top cars: men vs. women. This article supplied results from research done by NOP World, a global market research organization.

The article gave a quick overview/analysis of some consumer buying behavior in the automobile market and compared men to women; focusing mostly on men. The article pointed out that is very easy to figure out what men want in a car and how the concept of "perception" is used to market towards men. I found it to be rather obvious, but nevertheless, pretty hilarious that car manufacturers use the ideas of "selective attention" and "selective distortion" (pg. 193 of the textbook) to figure out how car drivers interpret what they see on a car. For instance, a Mustang GT with 4 headlights (2 headlights, 2 foglights) is perceived as being a more powerful car. 4 headlights are, indeed, available only on the V8-powered Mustang GT. Now, the V6-powered GT has 210 horsepower - not too shabby - but does not have 4 headlights. If it were sitting next to a V8 Mustang GT with 4 headlights, it would be quite clear which car has more power. Funny that men might equate more headlights with a more powerful engine.

Another example noted was that on their 2006 models, Dodge, who has stated they design and market cars for men, has made the "HEMI" decal on their cars larger so that powerful engine can be "seen" from afar. It is also rather funny to think that a large decal that reads "Hemi" could actually produce a "need recognition" for a powerful engine.

Not all of the article was amusing. As mentioned above, the research was conducted by NOP World. After reading the article and digesting the results I began to wonder what means they used to get this information. What type of marketing research was conducted? NOP's website cites 7 different research tools they used. I wonder which one was used.

It seems the Pontiac G6 convertible was number 1 on the list for women. How is a "yet-unreleased" vehicle number one on the list? This makes me skeptical about how representative the demographic could be for this research if a car that is not yet available makes number 1.

I am curious as to whether the auto industry or a specific manufacturer was seeking this data or if NOP conducted this research on their own.

Sorry, Toyota - the Prius did not appear on either top 10 list.