Cars are extremely useful devices for getting around, they are generally comfortable, they can carry all of your crap (depending on the size of them), they provide personal space, driving can even be quite fun but perhaps most importantly they leave when you want and they go where you want which helps to give us more choice in how we get around. Of course in Auckland especially, we acted like a kid given free rein in a candy shop that completely gorged itself on lollies and chocolate.

However that doesn’t mean cars don’t have their downsides. I expect that we will eventually solve the issues surrounding their dependence on fossil fuels however there is one major issue that will continue to exist, they don’t play well with others. The freedom and choice that cars provide quickly goes out of the window when there are no alternatives and when thousands of others want to make the same journey as you at the same time. That is a key part of the reason as to why we developed the Congestion Free Network proposal. But this post isn’t about the CFN, instead I want to look at one of the reasons cars have been so successful, their marketing.

I believe that one of the key reasons that cars have been so successful is that car manufacturers have done an excellent job at selling the dream that cars represent and what is the key way they do that? By showing their cars as the only vehicle on the road. Typically this means driving on open roads in away from the city where there is no-one to slow you down while at the same time showing off some of the amazing surrounding scenery (either from New Zealand or somewhere else overseas) or an iconic activity that people associate with (like a family going on a summer holiday).

Now of course getting out to see the country or going on a family holiday (often the same thing) are excellent reasons for having a car but for most people and for most of the time the reality is quite different. The “daily grind” means staying in the city and commuting to and from work all at the same time as a lot of others. Occasionally we will see an ad set in an urban area yet amazingly even then the roads magically flow free and are almost always filmed at night when we don’t have congestion problems anyway.

Below are a few examples of recent ads.

This one from Audi is definitely a very pretty ad showing off some great New Zealand scenery but it’s also funny how the urban scenes they show are of a car taking off down a shared space (Fort Lane) – an areas where pedestrians have priority and of the streets above the Britomart train station (which really should be shared spaces too).

This one from Toyota is perhaps one of the few that shows the reality of city streets before the driver decides to avoid the traffic and head off on an adventure in the countryside

Or how about this one Mazda which is set in a city centre with wide streets yet there are no other cars about and continuous green lights.

Just to make it clear, I don’t have a problem with companies marketing their products and highlighting the best points about them, why bother otherwise. I also don’t expect them to start selling cars as “being part of the congestion” but what is very clear is that the dream and the reality are quite different.

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48 comments

  1. “I believe that one of the key reasons that cars have been so successful is that car manufacturers have done an excellent job at selling the dream that cars represent”
    Really?, you think people drive cars because of some clever marketing? I don’t think so

    1. Did you read the whole post or just decide to cherry pick one line to be negative about? As I said at the very start, cars are extremely useful for a lot of reasons.

  2. Well that’s what the whole post is about isn’t it? That cherry picked line sums it up quite nicely.

    Car manufacturers may do a good job in getting people to buy their particular brand, but people don’t choose to drive just because they see some car driving through some scenic locale.

  3. “Really?, you think people drive cars because of some clever marketing?”

    Most people take up the smoking habit that way – whether directly or by social/peer pressure from others who believe the marketing already.
    So why would people not acquire the driving habit the same way too?

    Clever marketing being responsible for car owning/driving is a part of the issue, but in a lot more subtle ways than you may think due to the embedded social engineering and implicit assumptions that have taken place in society since WWII. These all basically sold people in the 50’s and 60’s that cars and suburbia – which go hand in hand – were their “just” reward for the sacrifices WWII made them and their parents make. These resulted in cities designed for cars and little else.

    And since then the message has changed so that car owning is being marketed (like smoking) as your “right” – no matter what the impacts to everyone else is.

    As has been pointed out elsewhere her time and again, you and your car are nothing but traffic congestion for everyone else on the road.

    Cars have their place, and time, but not to the detriment of every other mode of transport all the time.
    And the argument has got so unbalanced its as if the only mode that matters is cars.

    But the tide is turning as when marketeers have to resort to the “personal freedom” angle in their marketing you know they’re starting to loose the battle.

    As Suzuki used to say on the back on their 4WDs – “Suzuki loves Nature” (yep, so much so, it wants you to drive all over it in your 4WD).

    1. Clever marketing, or money in wallet. I am pretty sure before WWII the average Joe couldn’t afford a car (chicken and egg problem)

      1. Perhaps, but the ’30s was the GFC of its time, so thats why they couldn’t afford to have one – no credit to buy one.

        But in any case, post WWII the marketing message was changed to “you can’t afford *not* to have a car”, and the availability of finance and payment options allowed people to get a car (and a house in the suburbs) on credit – this started in the US, but trickled down to here eventually too. As we always copy the Amercian ideas sooner or later.
        [Only sometimes our small size saves us as it did with Nuclear power – we were just too small to have a Nuclear power plant, thank goodness – the governments of the day were dead keen to have one though].

        For NZ, you generally couldn’t get a (new) car unless you had foreign exchange reserves – that meant only farmers like sheep or diary farmers could buy new cars.
        Everyone else got their cast-offs until about the 1960’s when the rules changed.

        Even so, its a trend which continues today – except instead of them being ex-“Farmer owned” cars, they’;re now ex-“Japanese factory worker” owned cars that we buy, in boat loads…

  4. Matt, new cars are bought by dairy farmers and other primary industry people, and they don’t live in Auckland 🙂

    1. The statistics say otherwise: see http://www.mta.org.nz/dealer-stats

      For the latest data (July 2013):

      New Passenger vehicle sales: 43% in auckland
      New Commercial vehicle sales: 36% in auckland

      Note that Auckland has 31% of New Zealand population (2011 data).

      It appears that auckland punches above its weight when it comes to buying NEW cars.

  5. Well I think you should do a poll of all your friends and ask them why they own a car. See how many say they drive because of an ad.

    1. Ask your friends who smoke the same question and see how many of them say they smoke because of an ad.
      Yet, tobacco companies know ads for smoking are effective, so why wouldn’t car ads do the same?

      Yes I know the tobacco companies say its to get a bigger share for their brand, but collectively it adds up to getting more and more “mind share” for the idea of driving (and smoking) being cool.

      1. What smoking Ads?
        Smoking is addictive and a habit, driving is neither.
        Although one thing about smoking is that you have the freedom to smoke in your own car, which with PT you can’t

        1. Explicit ads may be banned now, but TV and movies have lots of smoking in them.

          And why not ask your smoking buddies why they started smoking, they might say ‘cos everyone else was.
          Then ask why were those folks smoking in the first place then and they might say well their parents (or the older kids) smoked, so ask them how come you smoke
          and they’ll say “the ads, Films and TV programs made it look cool”

          As for smoking in cars? Well maybe not for much longer if Ms Turia has her way and you’ve got kids:

          http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10911021

          Seems The Herald is down on smoking today:
          http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10911003
          and http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10910984

          “driving is neither [addictive or or a habit]”.

          Oh really, well you try and give up driving for a week/month and see how you go with doing your current daily life in Auckland and see how much havoc it wreaks on your feeling of control on your life.
          .
          The thing you’re addicted to is not “driving” (just like you’re not addicted to “smoking”), you’re actually addicted to a side-effect – in the case of driving the feeling of control it gives you and for smoking, the nicotine hit you get from doing the activity.

        2. To continue to try and claim driving is an addiction is being very unfair to those who have real addictions.

        3. KBilly, I think that we can all agree that an addiction to online porn is less damaging and less severe than an addiction to methanphetamine. We can do the same with driving, the mechanism is the same, the conditions and effect are different.

        4. Claiming driving is an addiction is as absurd as claiming people drive because of clever marketing.

    1. Cool Ad,
      The NZ Bus marketing and PR department don’t take notice – and ensure that the highlighted features like big windows, working stop bells, nice seats, dedicated bus lanes and “cool” bus drivers are made available here in NZ too.

      You sure don’;t get those “advanced features” on a NZ Bus, bus, in Auckland.

      1. Don’t know if its just me, but I find the new NZ Bus seats a little bit hard. Somehow feel like the older ones were softer?

        1. Ah but NZ bus run by investment bankers. Don’t care how they make money from public transport. Much easier for non transport experts to make money from property development and marketing than from actually running a reliable attractive service. Hence selling off bus depots for big box retail, and covering buses in advertising as much as possible.
          Would be interesting to know how much extra they are making from the advertising, so can figure out how much contract price would increase if those window covering ads were banned. If it is only 1% or so then they really should be banned.

  6. Obviously the marketing plays an important role, however the main reason people in Auckland buy cars is that getting around without one is extremely difficult. I am currently unemployed and don’t have a car. This makes it impossible to apply for jobs that involve shiftwork or are across the other side of the city from where I live – either public transport is not running at the times I would need to get too and from work, not close enough or too unreliable to trust to get to work on time. So for working people a car is a necessity, even though the expense of running it and the hassle of commuting impacts negatively on their income and quality of life. It is a fact that a lot of environmentalists seem to ignore when calling for congestion taxes or other penalties for using cars – you would be punishing people who are on lower incomes but have no other choice than to use their car to get to and from work. A public transport that was free, ran 24-hours and involved the use of shuttles to get people to and from industrial areas would go a long way to reducing congestion and the use of cars.

    1. You are right, but thats because the traffic planners in the past 50 years drank their own Kool Aid (some might say, they drank something else) and believed the car marketers hype too – and so didn’t actually build proper PT options at the same time as they rolled out all the motorways – even though they were told many times they had to.

      So now you have an unbalanced transport system, which needs radical intervention to correct years of mis-investment and its needed sooner than later.

      I’ve got a car and I like you would, I have to use it for work. But I’d much rather prefer a future Auckland where I could drive my car by choice not necessity for my work and my leisure.
      Right now thats not an option.

    2. Agreed, we need to actually sort our PT, that said, I don’t own a car and get 15k to work very easily, don’t even need to use PT.

    3. Saying that it is “environmentalists” pushing for measures to discourage driving isnt really accurate. It is more that the majority of civic leaders world wide are realising that cars have slowly strangled their city to death and that cars are not a very good way to move large amounts of people. Public transport and cycling work much better.

      Cars consume a huge amount of space, one of the things that is at an absolute premium in a city. Cities that minimise the use of cars are far more pleasant places for human beings to be in.

      Also, cars are very expensive for low income people to operate and maintain, let alone park. Public transport offers lower income workers a much more cost effective way to travel.

      Environmental concerns are more of a sideline “nice to have” aspect.

  7. I’d say that what they show is not too far off reality. Given I use PT for commuting I’m never stuck in congestion and when I’m using either of my cars it’s either in the weekend heading out of the city or at night when it quite. Just like in the videos.

    In regards to shared spaces, I thought they were shared rather than pedestrain plazas. And so if someone wants to drive through one sharing the space with anyone else there they are more than entitled to.

    You will also notice at the end of the Audi one they show the CMJ pumping traffic through, just like it does in real life.

    1. SF just a little clarification re shared spaces. You are right in that the road code permits motorists access but just like EVERY public access drive way/car park/forecourt/etc in this country the PEDESTRIAN has the RIGHT OF WAY and the legal speed limit is 10 km/hr. The one covert is said pedestrian may not unduly hinder or obstruct a motorist. So 10km/hr is a brisk walking pace for a ped and the ABSOLUTE SPEED LIMIT (read upper limit) for the motorist, So if a ped is walking in front of a car at near this pace then said driver just has to be patient.

      1. Patrick: While the speed limit should be 10 km/h in shared spaces, the law at the moment is that it’s whatever it’s signed as – and that’s 30 or 50 km/h for the shared spaces downtown.

        SF: I totally agree. I never drive in peak times, and do about 75% of my k’s on trips out of town. There’s a lot of very pretty parts of the country you can only easily see if you have a car – although you get to see more of it if someone else is driving! Car ads don’t meet the reality of much of the use most people get from them, but they do show off the greatest advantage of cars – the scenic, remote places you can go and see with them.

  8. Um, I thought it became illegal to advertise tobacco some 10 or 20 years ago?

    Certainly back when I was in high school smoking was for losers and try hards and the only form of advertising was against it.

  9. All sort of ways of pushing cars; just look at the current edition of the Listener which has a feature extolling the delights of car ownership ($): http://www.listener.co.nz/lifestyle/deals-on-wheels-car-buyers-guide/. Not surprisingly, the Listener – once the voice of what passes for liberals in New Zealand – is owned by APN who also own the New Zealand Herald a newspaper which, notwithstanding global trends, still manages to run a whole section devoted to cars). Given the fact that transport is the largest contributor to New Zealand’s growing carbon emissions, it’s the editorial equivalent of running a feature on the pleasures of smoking in the mid-90s, with Judith Collins extolling the virtues of Virginia Slim cigarettes rather than her favourite MG sports car (with chrome-plated bumpers).

  10. There’s a school of thought out there that the rise of the car was down to something much more Machiavellian than mere marketing. Check out the movie Taken For A Ride on YouTube, it’s a little dated but essentially lays out the argument that big oil and related companies, like tyre companies, conspired to get the US hooked on cars and oil in the 1930s and 40s. It’s pretty convincing stuff:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob2bYUtxlxs

    What happened here mimicked the USA. I’ve done a bit of research on the subject and it’s curious that our planners – specifically a cat called FWO Jones who ran the show in AKL for a very long time – did complete 180s on promoting PT and switched to pushing motorways. Did the fix go in just as it did in the States? You decide…

    1. On the DVD for “Who Killed the Electric Car” there was a similar documentary about the same thing that killed the Public Tramway system in the US and replaced it with buses that use tyres and petrol – both oil based products.
      Having seen what happened here in NZ in the ’50s with the Tram network you’ve got to wonder if maybe there isn’t some truth in it somewhere…

    2. I have loved Holden (GM) for most of my life (since late 70’s), and have worked for Holden dealers and for Holden NZ. I’ve never seen that ‘Taken for a ride’ doco until now and it’s left me speechless.

      As for ‘who killed the electric car’ well, that was, in my opinion, targeted directly at GM and left out the other big players (Toyota was there as well). I guess GM was the biggest at the time. I don’t mean the doco was wrong, more that it pretty much fingered GM as the sole reason and it was much bigger than that.

      1. Finished the doco. Of course the trams were knackered at the end of the war. They had been used extensively and, of course, would have received no upkeep while funds were being used on the war effort or rebuilding after the war. The mayor of San Fran had it sussed back in the late 60’s.

  11. I rather suspect that Jones’ friend Arthur Dickson, the Auckland City Council engineer was one of the great culprits in the sad story of Auckland PT. It was Dickson who in 1955, iirc, was responsible for the patsy report used by the Holland National party government as an excuse to cancel the proposed Morningside rail deviation and electrification of the Auckland rail network. Tom Pearce, Jones’ political boss at the ARA, was another one; he actively worked against Dove Myer Robinson’s advocacy of the 1974 Auckland Rapid Transit proposal which had emerged from the 1965 de Lauw Cather report and was very much involved in the Muldoon National party government’s decision to cancel it.

  12. The problem is that in Auckland, you have such an entrenched “car culture” that for some people, the idea of getting around without one is unconscionable. I’ve had many discussions with people who are convinced that public transport goes against the “Auckland/Kiwi way of life” or that being handed the keys to the car is “an Aucklander’s coming of age”, because they know no other way of doing things. There’s a “car culture” in Melbourne too, but at least we have a well-connected, relatively comprehensive transit network that can compete against it.

    While I was growing up in Howick, buses were perceived as being for kids without their licenses or the poor old sods who couldn’t afford to drive (however, when it is quicker to get to town via the motorway by car, than taking a bus that snakes through the suburbs, it is easy to understand why some people opt for the former).

    The Master Transportation Plan of the 1950s was similarly predicated on the myth of the unalloyed “freedom” afforded by the private motorcar.

  13. It’s pretty basic advertising to show off the good features of your product, not the negatives. Although most people probably aren’t touring around scenic parts of the South Island, if you are, a car is the perfect tool for the job.

    The only form of public transport that gets much advertising is flying. They also show the best features of their product – white sandy beaches, wandering around picturesque old towns, getting petted by elephants, or whatever, but they rarely show an actual plane, at least from the inside!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNEJrd6GkSY

    Worth noting that if you’re going to any of those places, you’re probably not doing much driving there.

    1. It’s one thing for an ad to sell you “the dream,” but when “responsible” policy-makers do it, it is another matter.

  14. Matt, what a brilliant post. You are correct we all need to focus on the dream and not the reality. We are burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow and the rate we are going there won’t be. Lets market listening to a whole CD on the motorways stuck with numerous other small vehicles and the passenger ones …the actual solution can’t even break through ie the reality. Everyone probably sick of my thrust but thinking painting the dream on the current seal and a one lane conversion to Public Transport and freight the way to go. I think in most cases the road is actually wide enough to make it work if we fire up the Public Transport Network. Drive around in the holidays…isn’t this the same thing when 30% of the people in cars aren’t on the road?

  15. I don’t understand the point of this post. Based on this post are we to assume that Bus/ Train use should also be advertised with someone standing in the pouring rain looking at a arrival information sign that is wrong most the time. And when the bus/train turns up it is standing room only full of coughing people and crying babies?

    1. Right on Ari. If you want to advertise PT you would show someone spending mist of the time walking or waiting and then when the bus or train turns up the will stand inside it as there are no seats left.

      1. Aren’t car ads more often than not targeted at people who have just purchased a vehicle, the idea being to reassure them that they made the right choice? Hence the images and the associated emotions they invoke. PT users haven’t made a similarly massive financial commitment so you wouldn’t expect PT providers to adopt the same approach in promoting their services. But, maybe there’s scope for a campaign focussing on the indirect benefits of using PT which could include ..being able to work (e.g. use iPad on bus or shiny new train with free wifi), being more physically active, being free of the financial commitment and risk of owning a car (or maybe a second car), being able to have a drink after work etc..??

        1. The fact that most car adds are put on TV at the same time as they have sales drives it would seem that the are targeted directly at selling things to people, just like any other advertisements.

          Now in order to advertise free WiFi you would actually need to provide it. And given 3G is so fast and cheap these days free WiFi is already of little relevance.

          In regards to being more physically active. By not wasting so much time waiting for buses and trains people actually have e to go runs ir to the gym.They can also go maintain biking snow boarding or surfing, all things that are rather hard to do even with the best PT system in the world.

          In addition the law is against drinking and driving, not drinking and owning a car.

  16. What if the bus and eventually train is free flow, comfortable, affordable and is a major step towards no congestion are more expansive road corridor room . This creates space for cycleways, maybe some roads like Queen St and maybe even eventually Tamaki Drive no cars at all apart from residents only? Isn’t this a better dream and maybe too postponing a natural imbalance on mother nature. Like a camel it isn’t the 70 bales of hay it is carrying it is the one straw that breaks it.

  17. The fact is if the powers that be give transport network professionals free reign to maximise routes, plan and paint on the current road network what we want (maybe overnight the whole city), give priority to public transport while adding in cycle routes and even short term sharing this fast tracked lane with the trucking sector. We could turn this baby around overnight. Is PT the poor cousin no….it is now at the top of the food chain (with speed maximised just for them) with the cycling network….a big change. As patronage goes up to big numbers 20-30% patronage profits go towards a new comfortable green fleet (solar powered hybrids) is this a better dream? Because personally think we could do this within 4 months. Then start phasing in new plant next June. A way better reality.

  18. Cars have always been a great vehicle for people to display status and demonstrate where we aspire to be in society and advertisers know it.

    Ego and self image will be one of the quite significant hurdles for getting people onto PT and that’s the competition PT faces.PT really needs to be fashionable and cool and ‘The thing to do and the place to be seen’.

    Good to see some TV presenters and few other well known Aucklander’s on buses lately. More of you please – the flock will follow.

  19. This is a really good idea Jeff. If we can supercharge the network-give it the status it deserves on the ground. Day 1 is a campaign with all the TV ,sporting personalities we can get on it and showing how great,fast,easy,social and cheap it is to get around. 1000 buses with network right of way-circulating the network on a singular pass is completely different than joining the cue. Patronage up fast. Roads free up. It is a ripple effect.

  20. I have to say that the morphing cheetah in the Mazda commercial reminded me of those Transformer movies (I think it must have been the sound effects). In any case, my favorite of these car ads was the land of plenty, the land of quattro. I really think that the use of song or a jingle gives car ads something extra that really can push it into the realm of the memorable. One of my recent favorites is actually the “Hum” commercial by Toyota for their new Prius family of cars. The ad makes use of some really gorgeous animation, and I think the jingle itself captures the Toyota’s message of the Prius line of cars flawlessly.

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