Build a GOOD car, then customers of all ages will buy it.

You see all kinds of people in a Honda Accord – 20s to 70s.

I’m in my early 30s and will be getting an AWD sedan for my next drive, so I will test drive this car. If it impresses me and the price is good, I will buy it.

I was just goofing with “ted ward”, his Mom sounds like a cool lady…. Plus, if my wife catches me flirting with other girls she won’t let me drive her car.

And, how a quote from Susan Docherty in Automotive News lays out the entire marketing campaign for this car. When Auto Exec’s talk to Automotive News they assume that the audience is their Dealers. The author has taken a single point and assumed a direction, and we all know what happens when you assume.

Thank god.

No, seriously. That kind of car does not sell, and the sales numbers of the Panthers should be evidence of that.

Which is why the product needs to be changed.

The problem is that the product serves a non-existent market. There is no place for it. It shouldn’t be built like this at all.

The product is designed and built with a specific audience in mind.

This product is designed to serve a small, dying audience. Stop building it, already!

Imagine Remington designing a new, improved version of the 700. Imagine then some marketing genius deciding that in California he is going to have a much greater success by marketing it not to hunters but to the Berkeley-style whiny moveon.org/peta types because that market is bigger. Wouldn’t that be brilliant? Guaranteed sales success, huh?

Again, it is not “positioning”. Once it is designed and produced, it’s too late for “positioning”.

The older folks will be happy to be associated with the younger crowd

What gave you that idea? I certainly do not want to. I’ve earned my stripes and the respect that comes with it. Most of the younger crowd around here is a bunch of dumbasses with fartcans on their Civics.

and the younger crowd will be happy to buy them.

Younger crowd will buy Buicks because of different market positioning? Heh.

It isn’t. It’s a car for retirees, which is the problem.

If the market for fuddyduddymobiles was worth serving, Buick would be rolling in dough right now. Buick obviously isn’t doing well at all, so there is a problem with this concept and it needs to be dumped.

If Buick wishes to be a luxury car, then it should be positioned as a luxury car that reaches the younger end of the luxury demographic. The older folks will be happy to be associated with the younger crowd, and the younger crowd will be happy to buy them. A car associated with the oldsters will be purchased only by them, and they are literally a dying market.

But that positioning requires changing the cars to serve the audience. This new car has a winning interior, but otherwise doesn’t go the distance. It’s better, but it isn’t enough.

But that’s the very problem. Why the heck is it promising Tiger Woods? That’s a stupid campaign. As someone has mentioned earlier, brand identity does not start with advertising, it starts with design and engineering. Buick is not a Tiger Woods car (whatever that means). Buick is a car for over-the-50 crowd, and it should be consistent in advertising that. Also, I am sorry, but I will call baloney on “that’s their last car”. What are we, in the XII century? We don’t die en masse at 55 these days. After 50 people still will buy many cars, and that demographic tends to be a lot more loyal than a 20-year old.

The roads are full of crap, and not all of it is avoidable. 35-through60- series tires don’t cushion the rim when they go flat.

In just the time it takes to get over to the shoulder, many of these huge alloy rims are severely damaged if not ruined. And little is left of the tires but the beads.The last two flats I experienced with 70-series tires resulted in zero damage to aluminum rims. Since one of the flats came as the result of a cut sidewall,it needed replacement, but the one with a chunk of wire through the tread just needed a patch despite my having to travel a tenth of a mile or so to get it off the road safely.

And the huge price tags these “dub” wheels and tires carry!

Even if suspension tweaks can nullify the bad effect these buckboard wheels and skimpy-sided tires have on ride quality, would not these super-shocks and cutting-edge material bushings cost hugely more than more-conventional stuff to replace?

Finally, having “dinky” wheels allows room for snow/slush/mud to flow more easily through the fender wells. We don’t all live where precipitation is rare.

There was some talk about big rims = punishing ride, and that may be the case, but there are also a couple of high end sedans out there who pull this off (Jaguar) without loosing the (admitedly lazy) plot, so why assume the worst?

I think Pch101 is entirely right in their marketing aims. No one wants a geezer car, so if they pretend 40-50yr olds will want it, they can try to remove the stigma that Buick has held for so long, and which Toyota seems hell bent on taking from them.

Yes, but they’ll only buy one or two. A twenty-year old buying an Aveo will come back in a few years for a Malibu, Uplander (shudder) or Traverse. Then they might move up to a Tahoe, or over to a Lacrosse or CTS. Or buy a Solstice or Corvette as a toy.

That someone in their late fifties or early sixties is probably buying their last, or at least penultimate, car.

By offering the Aveo, or god-awful late-90s used iron as the entry point, GM is effectively ensuring that the buyer is probably heading to Honda or Toyota when they’re going to upsize.

Yes, because GM is incompetent at implementing the strategy. The problem isn’t with the concept, it’s with the execution.

The products have to match the brand. Toyota promises reliability and delivers it. BMW promises a good driving experience and delivers it.

Buick promises Tiger Woods, but delivers a nursing home patient. It’s not enough to make a promise, the promise has to be kept. Advertising in the absence of product is not enough.

Future sales, oh, the ultimate pie in the sky that never seems to materialize for GM. In the meantime they’re doing whatever they can to abandon their traditional buyers and cut the branch they’re sitting on. Sorry, that does not strike me as a sensible marketing strategy. Had it been such a brilliant move, after the “That’s not your father’s Oldsmobile” that particular division should have been raking it in, huh?

GM should. Getting young buyers into the brand and keeping them is far more lucrative than is earning the sales of those who have few purchases left to make. They earn less on a sale to an older customer than to a younger one, because the brand loyalty of a younger customer leads to more future business.

Young people won’t buy an old man’s car, but older people are often happy to buy a young man’s car. The idea is to promote to younger people, while selling to everyone.

As of now, there isn’t much of a market for grandpa’s rental car. That isn’t a niche, that’s a trap.

Have you seen the Lincoln MKS? Other than the Hyundai XG350 tail lights, the resemblance to the prior-generation TL is uncanny.

The MKS really is a very handsome car, taillights notwithstanding. Much less chrome-festooned than most of it’s competition (eg, this Buick)