The famous French thinker Rousseau once said: "The world is a woman's book; if a thirty-year-old woman is like a prose sprinkled with foreign flowers, and a forty-year-old woman is full of rhyme, it is a small text; a fifty-year-old woman is like a thick novel, and every plot is fascinating; a woman in her sixties or even in her twilight years is a real reportage, flowing with the beautiful vicissitudes of the years." ”
In addition to Rousseau, Bing Xin also said: "If there is no woman in the world, then the world will lose at least five-tenths of truth, six-tenths of goodness, and seven-tenths of beauty." "Whether it is Rousseau, or Bingxin, they all pay high respect to women, women play a very critical role in the development of mankind, even in the automotive industry such as the mechanical industry, we still see many women in the car to promote the development of the automotive industry "figure".
Without a "female driver", what would we miss?
"Name five important people who drove the development of the automobile?"
Seeing this question, I believe that most readers can easily say it, such as Henry Ford (founder of the assembly line production of the automotive industry, founder of Ford), Carl Benz (the "father of the car", the inventor of the world's first four-wheeled car, the founder of the Daimler Group), Toyoda Kiichiro (founder of Toyota Motor, founder of lean production management of automobile production), Enzo Ferrari (the "father of racing cars", founder of Ferrari Motor Company), Andre Citroen (engine front, Designer of front-wheel drive cars, founder of Citroën Cars).
It has to be said that although men have laid a solid foundation for the development of automobiles, the contributions made by women to promote the development of automobiles are also not negligible.
Margaret Wilcox: As the inventor of the on-board heating device, she invented the first on-board heating device in 1893. Specifically, the heating unit mainly consists of a combustion chamber located under the car and a pipe for transmitting hot water, and the system redirects the air above the engine to the interior of the car to keep passengers warm. Although the heating device had certain hidden dangers in the early stage of invention, the working principle and system of Margaret Wilcox's invention device have been used to this day and have been continuously optimized by latecomers.
Bertha Benz: As we all know, Carl Benz invented the world's first gasoline-powered car and pioneered the automotive market. Unfortunately, many people do not know who the women who silently support the "father of the car" are. Bertha Benz was not only the wife of Carl Benz, but also played an extremely important role in the development of the automobile.
When the first car designed by Carl Benz was ridiculed as a "stinking monster", Bertha Benz and her two sons drove the newly perfected Model 2 for the first 66-mile journey, which not only gained public attention and recognition, but also Bertha Benz also wrote down the problems of the car and the ways to improve during the test drive. It is worth mentioning that when Bertha Benz discovered that the car had the safety hazard of not being able to stop at any time, she proposed the concept of brakes, laying the foundation for future car safety.
Because Bertha Benz, Margaret Wilcox, and others lived in a time so far away from us, we would feel very strange. However, the next woman is very familiar to most car enthusiasts. I remember that at the 2015 Shanghai Auto Show, the unveiling of the new NSX surprised countless audiences.
As a classic of Acura's past, the new NSX not only continues the classic design of the past, but also integrates the innovative design of romantic 3D vision in appearance. The reason for such a stunning design is inseparable from the efforts of a female designer - Michelle Krittenes. As the first woman to lead the supercar exterior design team, Michelle undoubtedly brought new insights into car design – giving cold machinery, more romance and emotion.
From Bertha Benz to Michelle Krittens, it's clear that women are influencing the automotive industry in different ways. To this day, women still play a role that cannot be ignored in the automotive field, whether it is female workers engaged in the automotive industry, or female consumers, are directly or indirectly promoting the positive development of the automotive industry. With the increasing number of female drivers, the automotive industry is also quietly changing.
A "color revolution" triggered by women?
According to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, by the end of 2020, the number of female drivers has reached 158 million, accounting for 32.43%. Although male drivers still account for a large proportion, the increasing number of female drivers means that female consumers have gradually become a force that cannot be ignored in the market. It is worth mentioning that according to relevant data, the male/female driver's license holding rate of "Z era" is 42% and 38% respectively, and the difference between the two is not much. It can be seen that female consumers have gradually become a potential target group for major car companies.
As we all know, many of today's target groups are Z-generation models, and car companies will add more personalized elements, especially more colorful body colors. On the question of body color, Brother Cylinder couldn't help but think of a female reporter's question before - "How many kinds of red do you think there are?" ”。 For us boys, the answer to this question is nothing more than two, one is pure red and the other is pink. However, when brother Tank asked a girl the same question, her answer was: "Givenchy has at least 20 reds; Dior has about 40 reds; Tom Ford has about 60 reds."
Although it is only a simple problem, we can see that female consumers are extremely sensitive to color. According to the 2021 automotive pop color released by PPG, white accounts for 35%, black is 18%, and gray + silver is 25%. Behind all this is nothing more than two reasons: first, the ordinary black and white gray car paint color grading process is relatively simple, the color requirements for multi-layer spraying are low, which is conducive to reducing production costs for car companies; second, because the previous automotive products are only used as "transportation tools", the function is relatively single, which indirectly affects the lack of emotional expression that consumers lack when choosing the body color.
However, from the current stage of the situation, under the background of the rising female driver's license holding rate, car companies have begun to continuously enrich the paint color of automotive products, such as from neutral white models to feminine pink, mint green, macaron and other feminine color paint colors.
Of course, the concentration of the above paint colors is still relatively high, mainly based on Wuling Hongguang MINI EV, Euler "Cat" series, Chery Ice Cream and so on. A large part of the reason for this situation is that car companies are worried that excessive feminine design will cause female consumers to resent, and even be "rejected" by the market. However, we can be sure that female consumers play a crucial role in the diversification of car colors.
Car companies should grasp the "measure"
Previously, the cigarette brand Marlboro, in the context of seeing market trends, had launched a cigarette designed for women, thinking that it could open up a new blue ocean market, but because cigarettes were too prominent for women, it eventually led to dismal sales. From this example, it can be seen that when car companies design products for female consumers, or formulate marketing strategies, they need to deeply understand the real needs of female consumers and grasp the size. In fact, although women are different from men in terms of physical strength, emotions and preferences, for women, they are more likely to have an independent and powerful image in society, rather than being mistaken for a "vulnerable group" and needing to be overly cared for.
Compared with the cookie-cutter "cute wind" design, after investigation, the cylinder brother found that female consumers have relatively unique aesthetic standards for the appearance design of the car, and more needs are reflected in the practicality of product functions. For example, according to the characteristics of road traffic complexity, domestic local car companies will add some driving assistance functions that were originally only equipped with high-end models to low-end models to bring more convenience to female users, so these models and the car companies behind them are favored by female consumers.
In general, female consumers have always been extremely active, especially in the Internet age, "she economy" is constantly breaking the original gender limitations and becoming a new growth pole under stock competition. With the increasing number of female driver's license holders and the continuous improvement of consumption levels, women's cars will become a new outlet in the market, and all these changes will drive the diversified development of the automobile market.
However, from the current situation, the automotive industry is still relatively less friendly to women. Due to the contradiction between the mass production of automotive industrial products and the complexity of consumer demand, car companies need to pay attention to emotional resonance and emotional fit in marketing while weighing the relationship between users and production. In this case, it will take a lot of time for car companies to make female consumers truly "incremental".
The aftermarket is increasingly "prosperous"!
While car companies still have to face the need to weigh production capacity and the needs of female consumer groups, the automotive aftermarket has seen an unprecedented boom. According to the survey data from some european and American countries, the sales profit of the automobile only accounts for about 20% of the profit of the entire automotive industry, the spare parts supplier is 20%, and the remaining nearly 60% of the profit is divided by the automobile service industry. For example, the hot sales of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV not only allow major car companies to re-examine the micro-electric vehicle market, but also drive the hot sales of personalized accessories for related models.
When we open an e-commerce platform to search for "Wuling Hongguang MINI EV", it can be clearly found that the richness of related stickers and accessories is far beyond our imagination. Through dialogue with merchants, Brother Tank found that in the consumer consciousness of most female consumers, buying stickers for vehicles is almost equivalent to buying clothes. This means that female consumers may become a key group to promote the development of the automotive aftermarket in the future, bringing rich profits to merchants.
summary
In the past, we all had a solidified impression that "cars are men's big toys", and even some people think that cars are men's exclusive items and look down on "female drivers". However, reality tells us that women have a non-negligible role in the development and consumption of automobiles. In this regard, Brother Cylinder believes that if there is no female promotion in the automotive industry, then it may be difficult for us to see the automotive industry glow with such brilliant "colors" today.