Holden embraces its feminine side

A lot has changed since the 1970’s. For Holden, gone are the days of the Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars jingle, and Torana and Gemini are no longer in the showrooms.


Women have changed the automotive industry, and I didn’t realise the extent of it until recently when I was invited to attend Holden’s SUV media breakfast, held at The Grounds in Alexandria and hosted by Melissa Doyle. It certainly got me thinking.

I’m not going to get on my feminist soapbox for too long, but go girls! The influence over everything from design to advertising campaigns, particularly in the SUV market is astonishing. By the same token, guys, what are you doing letting us women walk all over you?

The biggest surprise was the revelation that research has shown nearly 80 per cent of car purchasing decisions are made by women. No wonder the manufacturers have steered advertising campaigns and car design in the direction they have.

We bang on a lot about the unwavering popularity of SUVs and the segments continuous growth. But the figures tell the story - 31 per cent of new car sales are SUVs and in the past decade manufacturers like Holden have introduced extended ranges of this style of car.

There was a time that if you wanted a 4WD, there were few options. They were big, bulky, rough and off-road ready. Now you can get the look of an all-terrain vehicle with all the comforts of a city car and enough seats to make people-mover vans seem almost redundant.

According to the research, in the past 10 years the number of females buying SUVs has increased by 32 per cent. In that same period of time the number of women snapping up Holden SUVs has increased 118 per cent.

Holden’s general manager of marketing communications Teresa Basile explained the reasons the segment is so popular with women.

“The design, the style, features, safety, space, convenience. If you look at Captiva 7, a lot of women like that because there’s room for extra friends in the school pick ups.

We’ve found women like the ride height, the look of the vehicle, and it’s a convenience and space factor. There’s still a lot of women buying sedans like the Cruze, but 31 per cent of sales being SUV is huge.”

The growing popularity and the influence of women when it comes to making that all important car purchasing decision has forced Holden to change its tactics.

Basile said Holden has been embracing its feminine side and that’s altered the way they communicate and interact with female car buyers.

Advertising has changed, as has the dealership experience and the extra touches when it comes to products and services. Holden admits its been tweaking its image to become more gender neutral.

“I think traditionally people would spontaneously think of us as quite a masculine brand, everyone knows Commodore, everyone knows the Holden Ute but certainly over the last ten years or more we’ve had a lot more different products come into our portfolio, the Barina, Cruze and all of our SUVs so we’ve been focusing a lot more on demonstrating to people that we have a broad range of cars in our portfolio. It’s not just about cars for blokes. We’ve got small cars, light cars and SUVs,” she said.

“A lot of our communication and advertising messages have been around getting people to understand us and know a little bit more about us and that we do have a broader range.”

A decade ago the brand positioning was very masculine and targeted the typical Aussie bogan bloke. I have a little bit of a problem with this. I don’t want Australian car companies to lose that edge, it was very much part of my childhood encouraging my interest in the V8s as well as Holden’s golden oldies like the Kingswood, Gemini and Torana.

But all is not lost. It would seem the gender-neutral advertising is focused more on the SUV and city cars.

“People probably remember our advertising had AC/DC music in it, that’s very blokey and that’s okay. It has a role to play as well but over time that has changed and I think we’ve also wanted to change and broaden our image across both male and female.”

But what about about the disappearance of the bogan element in Holden’s advertising?

“Things have changed, people have changed and we’re changing with it. There was a role that played at a certain point in time. We’re making sure that we’re not just keeping up but we’re ahead of the change.”

The challenge for car manufacturers now is to grow and stay competitive, and offer something for everyone so they don’t miss out on a slice of the SUV pie.

With the feminine influence over which car ends up in the driveway of the family home, the SUV trend looks likely to continue for quite some time.

The tweaks and changes have filtered into all aspects of car design. Before you panic, it’s not about pink upholstery and glitter; the changes are much less noticeable, according to Rebecca Christianson, GM Holden’s lead designer for colour and trim.

“We look at subtle differences for women, what we try not to do is the obvious.

We’ve got to understand the practicalities of a car, and really the most popular car interiors are black or grey because they’re practical and hardwearing. So we’re not considering that we’d change that too drastically. The differences are in the finish, for example the paint finishes, decoration finishes and some of the materials we use.”

Unless you count the pastel ‘Luscious Kiss’ pink Barina Spark, which was discontinued, there hasn’t been a pink Holden production car as yet. A few years ago a concept car featured a ‘masculine pink’ hue called ManGenta. I’m still googling to find out exactly how ‘masculine pink’ varies from plain old pink or even magenta.

But the bright colours are popular with men, particularly on the sports cars. Holden says their hero colours, like ‘Fantale’ orange are a hit with the guys.

Women, however, are the main consideration behind the interior design of Holden’s SUV range, the process is intense yet has a ridiculously long lead-time.

“All of our inspiration for interiors from the fashion industry, the main difference is we generally work four to six years in advance. Fashion is constantly changing, it’s seasonal, and we can’t really do that. We can’t take an influence that’s on the catwalk now because by the time it gets in the car its over,” she said.

“We look at the influences that are very strong; there are some trends that will be popular season after season. Interiors and architecture are our main focus - looking at whether subtle finishes are in or more technology is in.

But a lot of what we do will be dictated by supply capabilities, which new paint pigments are available, what are the new manufacturing technologies and things like that. So when we think about particularly geared towards females, it’s probably just a consideration of all of those finishes, the touch the feel, the practicalities particularly for those with children, something that can be easily cleaned but also look good. If it were purely practical, we’d end up with a lot of basic hard wearing materials and easy to clean surfaces.”

Essentially, women want the interior of their car to look pretty and well finished, yet still be easy to keep clean.

Safety is also a major priority, particularly for those with children or those planning to start a family in the near future.

Holden’s Steve Curtis, manager of vehicle structure and safety integration pointed out that every new Holden is now ISOFIX compliant.

“Once the new system is approved by the Federal Government, Holden owners will be able to purchase and use ISOFIX seats immediately,” he said.

“All of our vehicles boast an extensive list of active and passive safety features and are demonstrated high performers in crash tests, however our responsibility in safety does not stop there.

Holden is actively supporting the development and legalisation of advances in child seat technology including the introduction of ISOFIX child safety seats.”

There are only a few cars on the Australian market capable of fitting three ISOFIX child seats across the rear seat and the VF Commodore is among them.

As well as tailoring SUV design and advertising to attract more female buyers, Holden also run a number of initiatives aimed at the fairer sex.

“As well as advances in technology, education plays a huge role in improving child safety with a concerning new statistic out that over 70 per cent of child restraints are incorrectly fitted,” Mr Curtis said.

The Buckle Up Kids program is a free child restraint checking service; it’s underway in Victoria and South Australia and Holden hopes to roll it out across more states and territories shortly.

Cars are complex and many people, both male and female, don’t know enough about the expensive machine that they’ve invested a lot of money in.

Holden runs Women on Wheels workshops through dealerships. They’re free and involve professional technicians running five different ‘hands on’ stations.

Each station demonstrates different procedures, including changing tyres, maintaining correct tyre pressures, jump starting a car with a flat battery and teaching participants how to identify worn components like brake pads and dirty air filters.

Holden’s director of customer experience, Narelle Stack, said Holden believed this was a critical program for all motorists, both Holden and non-Holden owners.

So according to Holden, what are the main things women in particular need to know about their car?

  1. Tyres need to be checked on a regular basis.
  2. Don’t tailgate, especially in bad weather.
  3. Learn basic maintenance.
  4. If your car breaks down know what to do.
  5. Know the car fluids to check, and actually check them.

Holden’s SUV range starts with the city-sized Trax, then the slightly larger Captiva 5, the seven-seater Captiva 7 and the Colorado 7 that also allows for serious four-wheel-driving.

Captiva 7 has been racking up some impressive sales figures, since its first full year of sales in 2007 more than 100,000 have been sold. In 2013 the Captiva 7 was the best selling seven-seater in Australia.

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