Agnieszka Flak Jona, Switzerland
SUPERCAR makers are like teenage boys at a high school dance, according to business consultant Belinda Parmar. They do not have a clue how to speak to women. They may need to learn, and quickly.
With the number of financially independent women on the rise across much of the world, high-performance car makers risk losing a potentially big market to more adaptable rivals.
“Any woman could drive those cars,” said Sonja Heiniger, the Swiss owner of an internet services firm who has owned four Lamborghinis and hits the racetrack in a Porsche.
“If you only address men, then that’s a pity,” the 76-year-old said as she touched the accelerator in her latest Lamborghini, a $375 000 (R4.4 million) Gallardo Super Trofeo Stradale special edition car in “rosso mars” red.
It may be more than a pity. It could prove costly.
While fewer than 10 percent of Lamborghinis and Ferraris in the US are bought by women, the figure for Porsche – whose sportscars tend to be cheaper – has climbed to almost a quarter, according to forecasters IHS Automotive.
In China, one of the world’s fastest-growing car markets, Porsche makes almost 40 percent of its sales to women, helping it to become a key profit engine for parent Volkswagen.
Porsche has picked tennis star Maria Sharapova as a brand ambassador and expanded into sport-utility vehicles, a category that has proved popular among women. But the high-performance car industry has a long way to go.
Gender stereotypes
It remains dominated by gender stereotypes, with scantily-clad models decorating the stands at car shows. And most brands make little attempt to address women – just look at the number of car adverts in male-orientated magazines such as GQ compared with Marie-Claire and Elle that have a more female readership.
When luxury car makers have tried to market to women, their attempts have sometimes backfired. An Aston Martin dealership in Britain organised a “Ladies Day”, offering an Estee Lauder make-up lesson after a test drive, a move which some women criticised as patronising.
As a result, some car makers appear wary of trying.
“It’s like with an engineering degree which attracts more men than women, that’s just how it is,” Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said. “Males are more into the car business and the super sportscar is the pinnacle of that business.”
He added that he would like to see more women buyers, but would not push to attract them in order “to keep the Lamborghini DNA as pure as possible”.
Women tend to choose cars that are smaller, cheaper and more fuel-efficient, according to a study by TrueCar.com, an automotive pricing and information website. While that may be true as a generalisation, there are women who want cars that are powerful, loaded with features and fun to drive just as much as men. That appears to be especially the case in emerging markets.
Although Ferrari sold only around 8 percent of its cars in the US to women, the figure was about three times that in China, IHS said. Women customers in China also often opt for the more powerful and more expensive Ferrari 458 model.
Proud
“Women in China are proud of what they have achieved and let it show,” said Wolfgang Duerheimer, the chief executive of Bentley, a sister brand to Porsche in the Volkswagen stable.
The potential female customer base for high-performance cars is getting bigger. A record 197 women made Forbes’s list of billionaires this year, up from 172 in 2014, though still a small proportion of the 1 826 total. – Reuters