Detroit – First, there were chick flicks, movies that appeal to women because of their emotional, introspective plot or girlie cast, often making macho men roll their eyes.
Now, increasingly, automakers are working to create chick cars.
For the past year, beginning with the launch of the new Mariner crossover, Ford Motor Co.’s 66-year-old premium Mercury label has been reinventing itself as a youthful sophisticate – pitching new cars and trucks alongside independent films and high-end fashion venues that seem boldly feminine.
Mercury has sponsored films out of a Glamour magazine contest, makeovers during Fashion Week in New York and a random Make Your Day giveaway of haircuts, manicures and coffee. Mercury arranged for Ellen DeGeneres to give away a Mariner hybrid on her talk show.
Mercury marketing manager Kim Irwin is uneasy with suggestions that the brand is making a play primarily for women, noting how the brand also sponsors ads in manly magazines such as GQ, Maxim and Stuff. And it’s not like Mercury is shamelessly draping itself in a swath of pink.
But Mercury’s official position that it is gender-neutral seems difficult to square with its highly female-oriented campaign.
“That’s what they’re doing,” Gordon Wangers, chief executive of AMCI Inc., an automotive marketing firm in Marina Del Rey, Calif., said of Mercury’s apparent targeting of women.
Coming off as a chick brand in the auto business has risks, however. There’s an adage in the auto industry: You can sell a woman a man’s car, but you can’t sell a man a woman’s car.
But some experts say this long-feared risk is outdated.
“What’s wrong with getting a makeover when Mercury might show up the next day and offer guys a golf lesson?” asked Fara Warner, author of “The Power of the Purse: How Smart Businesses Are Adapting to the World’s Most Important Consumers – Women.” “I don’t think you want to make it too girlie. But to put your brand where women are, that’s a good thing.”
For now, Mercury seems to be executing its year-old “New Doors Opened” campaign deftly: On the strength of the Mariner, Mercury sales are up 3.9 percent this year, a significant accomplishment in an overall market that is up only 1.2 percent.
