There are two kinds of people: people who split the world into two kinds of people and people who don’t. I usually consider myself part of the latter group. However, after spending a few years with The Truth About Cars, I’ve become fascinated by the variety of opinions from readers who share so much in common. Type in anything to do with the Prius and watch the battle lines form. Last year, The Cambridge Strategy Center published some ideas that go a long way towards explaining why this website isn’t always unified, taken as gospel and/or followed like law. It seems there are two kinds of car people.
The Cambridge Strategy Center is a marketing/brand consultant think tank, serving clients as diverse as Coca Cola, Phillips and BMW (who embraced and set forth the Center’s ideas regarding car consumers). Inspired by Jungian personality archetypes, the Center believes drivers are either ‘instrumentalists’ or ‘expressives.’
Instrumentalists believe cars should serve a variety of purposes: commuting, schlepping, joy riding, the works. In fact, the closer their car is to a Swiss Army knife, the better.
Instrumentalists tend to name their cars, overlook windshield wipers that deploy with the high beams and believe that you can coax a car to start with a soothing voice. In general, instrumentalists want their car to be the kind of friend who helps you move on a Saturday, attracts the opposite sex and stays out of a ditch during a snow storm.
Expressives perceive their vehicles as [yet another] expression of their personalities. They are what they drive.
Expressives want a car that shows they are smart, rich, hip, practical and/or environmentally conscious. Conversely, in a different form of expression, they might not give two puffs what you think.
Expressives like to drive. All driving is a form of competition, whether it’s racing the wannabe in the Honda Civic or owning the world’s most fuel efficient vehicle. The believe an automobile should do one thing and one thing well. Expressives want the best rock climber or dragster or delivery van.
The Caterham is extreme example of an Expressives’ ideal whip. Quick and harsh and so severally pruned for performance that only Jonny Lieberman might like it (and probably not even him). While any niche vehicle will illustrate the Instrumentalists’ desires, a Honda Insight or H1 also serve as excellent examples of their heart’s desire.
Both Instrumentalists and Expressive can care deeply about cars– for vastly different reasons. Their personal rating systems diverge, cross and curve like the streets of Boston. An instrumentalist might consider a Porsche Cayenne sublimely multi-functional; an expressive might contend that the same model is a waste of space and a brand betrayal.
When it comes to the new car market, Instrumentalists rule. The preponderance of Camcordimas on American highways illustrates the point. By the numbers, these cars are almost identical. They’re also not far from the Malibu, LaCrosse, Galant, Aura and a host of others an Expressive would be too bored to list.
The entire SUV surge can also be explained by the preponderance of Instrumentalists. Sport and utility? Both traits are severely compromised-– a Ford Explorer can't haul as much as an Econoline or traverse inner Greenland without some serious modification. It can ALMOST do everything, though. And that is the point of an instrumentalist’s instrument.
For a car to appeal to both camps it must be useful for a number of tasks, and do at least one thing better than everything/anything else. Obviously, there aren't many cars that fall into this category. But any vehicle that does can attain both cult status (Expressives) and popular sales (Instrumentalists). The Volkswagen Beetle, the early Toyota Corolla, a proper Land Rover, a genuine Jeep and, most recently, the Toyota Prius are the “real” crossovers.
A list like that just begs for debate. It has to, because everyone who comes to this site arrives with a different set of values. My guess is TTAC readers tend to be Expressives, though it’s not a black and white distinction. People are shades of gray. Most of us need to adapt pocket book to lifestyle to desire. You can’t fit three kids in an Audi TT unless you’re very angry. In a Honda Pilot, the entrance ramp to the I-90 is simply no fun.
This would account for the large number of consumers who own two vastly different cars. RF’s Porsche Boxster S and Honda Odyssey make a strange, but entirely understandable pairing. How many “boring” sedans sit next to a Miata in the garage? Lots.
Personally, I don’t like to force the world into Venn diagrams. I lean different ways at different times. And I now know that many of the disagreements here stem from diverse values, not from the fact that one commentator is smarter than another. Present company excluded, of course.
Interesting point. That said, it’s all about shades of grey, as you present it towards the end. For example, I oscillate between the Expressive and Instrumentalist: I own a practical, multi-purpose car (a golf), but with which I also like to have fun, and we chose it over competitors like the toyota matrix because it’s more fun to drive.
I would also add another type of TTAC B&B: the armchair analyst. Interest in car marketing and branding is what brought me here in the first place, more than a love of driving.
Interestingly, I’m drawn to car marketing because of this bi-polarity between Expressive and Instrumentalist. Cars are both, often at the same time, and thus make for much more complex purchases than appliance do.
I’ve been Expressive before but now I am a firm Instrumentalist. Time constraints, economics, and practicality took over where driving fun, bragging rights, and silly wastes of money (on cars) left off. The most radical thing about my car is the stereo and I listen to AM radio half of the time.
Where car companies get in trouble is trying to sell to the “other” group of people when they really should focus on a core audience. Show me a marketing type that believes Everyone wants to buy his car and you’re looking at someone that doesn’t get it. Rather than be content with dominating a particular sect of customer they branch out into areas where they do not belong. Buick Super is one example, a hot rod Buick makes you scratch your head and wonder. They seriously can’t compete with other offerings in the same price range but more importantly why should they? Most people are NOT going to take a look at Buick the Division and say ” Wow, Buick makes really fast cars!”
It would be interesting to put a vote – Expressive / Instrumentalist – on the side of this post so we could say what we consider ourselves…
Well, my dreamcar is a Caterham, and I have a Citroen DS in the garage, waiting for renovation. What does that tell about me?
Interesting theory, though. I think that there are two kinds of people too. I tend to categorize them as “square” and “non-conformist” people. The square people are often reliable but boring, they hold on to values, they are law-abiding, their horizons are not that wide, they don’t like abstract art or open-ending films, in fact, they don’t like anything that they can’t grasp in a single moment. And 90% of all the people you are ever gonna meet are just like that. The common people of the land. You know, morons…
The other group is generally more fun, they break rules, they tell jokes, they invent telephones, they can handle abstract thoughts where the answer is not in black and white, they dress in funny clothes and they don’t give a rats ass about what other people think.
One could categorize thema also as followers and leaders. Someone has to dress funny to invent a new trend. And someone has to buy all those clothes that makes up a current trend. Someone has to break the rules to make way for new ways of doing things. It’s a symbiosis between the groups, even if they detest each other highly.
Well, it’s a theory, anyway…
I’m skeptical of any categorization scheme that can’t effectively differentiate between the members of a population except at the extremes. If the Land Rover and Prius are in both groups, then is there anything other than two seaters that doesn’t overlap? Nice job, Cambridge Strategy Center – you figured out that some people buy sports cars and some do not.
This comment might get deleted, but here we go:
This editorial could have been condensed into the following statement:
“Individual people have individual tastes”.
The rest of the “Instrumentalists” Vs the “Expressives” is a load of psychobabble, cobblers created by a bunch of overpaid consultants to make themselves sound intelligent and anthropologically savvy.
Their explanation of an “instrumental” doesn’t even make sense. An “instrumental” will believe that you can coax a car to start with a soothing voice. This is incongruous, because, an “instrumental” is a functional, logical person, so, therefore, they will know that talking to a car has no value whatsoever. That would be a trait an “expressive” would have, because they are painted to have a soul and passion; the kind of person who would buy an Alfa Romeo.
The world is far more complex that what these idiots at the Cambridge Strategy Centre think. These are the kind of berks who talk about “capturing the zeitgeist” and “throwing ideas around and seeing what sticks”…….wankers!
I’m obviously an expressive.
My “dream garage” would not only include the cars I now have (Prius, Sonata) and enjoy, but would include a Chatherham (Lotus) 7 for fun-time (which is essentially, a somewhat safer four wheeled version of a sports motorcycle).
Ever watch the opening scenes of the 1960’s British cult TV show called “the Prisoner” and see the Lotus 7 just wailing through the streets of London? It’s uber-cool.
Of course, nowadays you can’t even wail on a car in London at 2am, the place is so crowded and congested.
I would guess that most Instrumentalists are Expressives underneath, but are too cheap, practical, or modest to go out and buy that stage 3 Roush.
What would happen if we abandoned our instrumentalist super egos? It would be a much more interesting world in which to drive.
With a 335 and an S2000 in my garage, along with a couple of different motorcycles, I suppose that I fall well into the “Expressive” category.
Yet I look at the 335 as a vehicle which will reasonably take four people out to dinner while still being able to do a few weekends at the track every year. So I suppose that it solves my “Instrumentalist” leanings. I am comfortable with the idea that for those rare events when I want to move six people, Hertz keeps a fleet of very useful minivans at my disposal.
Perhaps the Truth is that the wide variety of people have differing definitions for what their swiss army knife needs to do, and that among those definitions, some cars are Expressionist and some are Instrumentalist.
Thanks, Michael, for an interesting viewpoint.
and then there are RS4 Avant owners.
KatiePuckrik –
The rest of the “Instrumentalists” Vs the “Expressives” is a load of psychobabble, cobblers created by a bunch of overpaid consultants to make themselves sound intelligent and anthropolgically savvy.
Sure it’s an arbitrary distinction on a greyscale, but putting names on the extremes opens up a framework for discussion, and that’s both useful and accurate for most consumers.
As for the overpaid hacks, I think they’re at least as adept (or inept) at analyzing buyer’s needs as the executives at GM or Mercedes-Benz.
Unless you have the means to purchase the recreational vehicle of your choice to park next to the vehicles you need, you would fall into that shade of grey. If I had the money I would by a few vehicles that could only be considered “Expressive” as they are purpose built vehicles. But, I have other expenses so I have to compromise. Generally I would be more in the “Expressives” camp since I do see my choice of vehicle as an extension of myself and my personality. Also, I easily fall into the “competitive” set as described in the article. Every commute is an adventure. So I ended up with a Mazdaspeed6. I can schlep Jr. to preschool, drive it in the winter, four doors, reasonable fuel economy, reasonable price and it can outrun, outcorner 95% of the vehicles I encounter on my daily commute.
This editorial could have been condensed into the following statement:
“Individual people have individual tastes”.
No. People in western cultures like to believe that they are all unique, special people with their own unique, special values and quirks.
That’s ego-driven self delusion. In practice, you could use a few categories that combined could distill the essence of virtually everyone with near-complete accuracy. At the end of the day, most of us are a commodity, and few people truly stand apart from and above the crowd.
The fact that marketing and product folks can create products that serve so many people proves the point. It is quite possible to figure out what people want and satisfy their wants simply by understanding which categories describe them best. If no one went to the trouble, we’d be a lesser world for it.
I’m with Brownie and Katie. People are different and they just like different things. You can’t just simply use two simple categories. BTW everyone I know THINKS they are smarter than the other guy or gal.
I’m with Brownie and Katie. People are different and they just like different things. You can’t just simply use two simple categories.
Of course not. But ain’t it fun?
Being the kind of person who doesn’t split the world into two kinds of people doesn’t mean thinking that “everyone’s unique, everyone’s special”. It means not being ridiculously simplistic.
*Of course* you can put us into categories, and explain something like our car preferences only in terms of those abstract categories.
But *obviously* it’s going to take more than TWO categories to do that adequately.
Ah, dont be such a square….
pot kettle black
I hate the simplistic stereotypes of marketing because they always miss the mark.
I prefer the simplistic stereotyping of people.
Two categories for everyone to fit into? How neat and tidy!
There are some parallels in history where this has been true: Nazis vs anti-Nazis, communists vs anti-communists, and now thanks to Cambridge we have Prius owners vs Prius haters.
Thanks for playing, but I’m just not buying it. Trying to categorize the builder who shows up to the job site with a beat-up Ferrari, or the guy driving the 9 second Dodge minivan, or trike owners (??) just doesn’t work.
The real truth is that most people want to think of themselves as expressives, while in reality the majority are instrumentalists. This is the essence of marketing – tell the people they are being an individual by buying exactly what all the other cool kids have (see Harley-Davidson’s marketing genius if you need an overt example. Of course, we all share some traits form both camps.
On a side note, you don’t have to be angry to fit three kids in a TT, you just need to have small kids…
No. People in western cultures like to believe that they are all unique, special people with their own unique, special values and quirks.
That’s ego-driven self delusion.
And pretty darn useful for a society. Because among the majority who aren’t unique in special ways are those who are. Their achievements in art, literature, science and technology don’t arise out of the collective.
I think most people buy what they like, based on their prioritized needs (or wants) at the time of purchase. In other words, people buy cars according to relative perceived “value” (in the largest sense of the word) along a value spectrum, where value is different things to different people, and different things at different times to the same person.
For example, if you are strictly interested in monetary value, this could mean the absolute cheapest vehicle available that still meets your needs, regardless of what kind or brand of vehicle. Or, this could mean the vehilce that you perceive as offering the most “bang for the buck”, whatever that means to you – size, status, looks, luxury features, fuel mileage, performance, or some combination thereof….whatever.
The point is, people will buy cars (or almost anything for that matter)relative to meeting their “heirarchy of needs” (yeah, yeah, more pshyco babble) at the time of purchase. Thus, even those of us who tend more toward the “expressive” side of the car buying value spectrum, place higher relatve value on a car’s emotional, or vicseral, appeal and the attributes that provide this appeal, above other more mundane considerations. This explans why it is possible for some people to make an apparent “impluse” purchase, where a car’s purely emotional appeal is so overwhelming it compels a person to buy it on the spot, other considerations be damned.
In other words, its all relative, and at the end of the day, who really cares but you as long as you’re happy with your purchase?
In response to a question about religious traditions several years ago, the Dalai Lama pointed out that the world became a more understandable place when one realized that religious thought was not simply divided into small categories. I’m paraphrasing here, but he said that one reaches a far clearer understanding of people when one realizes there are six-billion different religions.
The argument seems sound. One person’s rationale for buying a Suburban, or a Ferrari is likely different from that of another person buying the same vehicle. So these ‘categories’ which marketers like are simply convenient handles which do little to understand the vast area of reasoning, intellect and judgment that goes into the individual’s decision to use a specific tool.
Interesting speculation nonetheless…
IMO…We are all indiviuals which, by definition make us unique. So, there cannot be two kinds of people. It is when unique indivuals are confronted by something that insists that we have an opinion about, a yes/no, like /don’t like, must have/don’t need – that makes it so we all fall on one side or the other.
The indiviuality never changes, but if there are only two options, generally speaking, we all fall on one side or the other. Making any more of it than that is just marketing.
I own a Chevy Malibu Maxx and love every minute of it. Guess what that makes me?
Station-wagon hauling, sub-8 0-60, 6’3″ guys can ride in back without banging their knees, can be driven 12 hours straight without a single back twinge, 30+ MPG highway, all the buttons in the right places with “tasteful” faux-stiching… this car does EVERYTHING.
Doesn’t do any one thing really, really well, but I don’t generally care.
One person’s rationale for buying a Suburban, or a Ferrari is likely different from that of another person buying the same vehicle.
The categorization is about the humans, more so than it is about the products. The humans fall into one camp or another, and the products can be designed to fit their general tendencies.
The point of the categories is to separate those who choose products based upon external versus internal criteria. The dichotomy is not one of emotion vs. utilitarianism, but of reliance upon the judgments of the external vs. internal for making the purchase decision. In this case, the expressionist sees it as a tool to communicate a message to others, while the instrumentalist views it in more personal terms. You could go further and divide each of these camps into subcategories, but those can still lead back to two main groupings.
The stereotypes used here are not meant to address subtle nuances among individuals, as those nuances are not meaningful enough from a marketing standpoint to impact design or promotion. These categories are meant to be tools for better product development and positioning. When possible, a smart producer will try to make a product that can serve members of both groups, and then market the product in order to reach both sides.
If the marketer can understand the audience well enough to make products people want, then these tools are effective. It’s pretty obvious that some companies have a better grasp on this than others.
Ingvar:
Interesting theory, though. I think that there are two kinds of people too. I tend to categorize them as “square” and “non-conformist” people. The square people are often reliable but boring, they hold on to values, they are law-abiding, their horizons are not that wide, they don’t like abstract art or open-ending films, in fact, they don’t like anything that they can’t grasp in a single moment. And 90% of all the people you are ever gonna meet are just like that. The common people of the land. You know, morons…
The other group is generally more fun, they break rules, they tell jokes, they invent telephones, they can handle abstract thoughts where the answer is not in black and white, they dress in funny clothes and they don’t give a rats ass about what other people think.
I think the truly creative, break-the-mold types have much better channels for their creative energies than the type of car they drive.
I wouldn’t be any more surprised to find your non-conformist, artistic, abstract-thinking, unconventional sort in a 2002 Camry than I would be to find him in a ’69 VW bus.
That ’02 Camry might be hand-painted with a Sharpie to depict the life of Simon Bolivar, but the choice of vehicle is irrelevant.
I drive either a Geo Prizm and or Mr2 Spyder depending on the weather. Both get 30 mpg, in one I crank up the radio for my commute, in the other the top is down and often the radio is off. I commute 60 miles per day and I want something economical. The Prizm is mind-numbingly boring and utterly reliable. The car is, besides brakes and a timing belt, all original equipment at 103K miles. Cheap, reliable transportation. The MR2 is reliable so far and is a delight to drive. I don’t like pissing money away on gas nor spending time either in the shop or on my back in the garage. If the Prizm dies, which doesn’t seem likely given how it is running, I’ll buy another cheap commuter, with a big radio.
I think the truly creative, break-the-mold types have much better channels for their creative energies than the type of car they drive.
But of course. I didn’t state otherwise. My theory had nothing to do with which group buys what car. It was completely off-topic.
Though creative types usually likes to express themeselves by various means, like what car they drive. Either by driving around in Land Rovers and Citroen 2CV:s, or by expressing their wish to stand outside society and not care about cars at all, driving around in a 20 year old beater, or for that matter, a Camry. But being anti-establishment is also a statement.
Which reminds me, Ingmar Bergman drove around on the island where he lived in his dusty red 1980 Mercedes G-Wagen. He owned it and used it until he died last year. I always thought it was a most appropriate car for him. German, no-nonsense, off-roader. Made when the G was made for the military and not the bling-bling crowd. Stanley Kubrick had a white Porsche 928. A german mechanical wonder of a clockwork. I don’t know why I know stuff like that, but it amuses me to know. Does it say something about the owners? To me it does, I can understand why they liked those cars…
I don’t get it. How is driving an old or unique car anti-establishment?
I drive a 31 year old Mercedes because I like it. I drove a 20 year old Volvo wagon last year, because I like it. I drive a 2002 bling-bling S-Class with all the options, because I like it.
The first one I bought for $250. The second was bought for $500. The S-Class was purchased for $12,600 from a credit reunion with a few too many repos.
Hmmmm…. maybe there are three different types of people.
Those who bought a vehicle because they like it.
Those who bought a vehicle because other people like it.
Those that don’t like cars, and only buy because some guy out in Fresno told them about their Cheyoda Prizmolla.
But wait, some people don’t drive… and of those people, some want to drive and some do not. And those who like to drive sometimes prefer to only buy green cars and drive during the springtime. And let’s not forget the Eskimos…
Methinks that marketing is not all it’s cracked out to be. How else do you explain cars like the Toyota Echo and Cadillac BLS.
netrun :
May 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
There are some parallels in history where this has been true: Nazis vs anti-Nazis, communists vs anti-communists, and now thanks to Cambridge we have Prius owners vs Prius haters.
Thanks for playing, but I’m just not buying it. Trying to categorize the builder who shows up to the job site with a beat-up Ferrari, or the guy driving the 9 second Dodge minivan, or trike owners (??) just doesn’t work.
haha, that’s a somewhat warped sense of history. If anything I’d say it’s much easier to do the 2 category thing with cars than history. Unless of course you regularly wear aluminum foil on your head.
KatiePuckrik wrote: “Instrumentalists” Vs the “Expressives” is a load of psychobabble, cobblers created by a bunch of overpaid consultants to make themselves sound intelligent and anthropologically savvy.
Their explanation of an “instrumental” doesn’t even make sense. An “instrumental” will believe that you can coax a car to start with a soothing voice. This is incongruous […].
The world is far more complex that what these idiots at the Cambridge Strategy Centre think. These are the kind of berks who talk about “capturing the zeitgeist” and “throwing ideas around and seeing what sticks”…….wankers!
I agree with every word. Twice. ;)
Where car companies get in trouble is trying to sell to the “other” group of people when they really should focus on a core audience. Show me a marketing type that believes Everyone wants to buy his car and you’re looking at someone that doesn’t get it.
What would you tell Lee Iacocca regarding the Mustang? That those two extra seats will alienate the sports-car guys, and the lack of two extra doors will make it impossible to sell to families? It sold 400,000 copies in its first year alone and millions thereafter because those two extra seats gave it more versatility than any other sports car on the market, and that lack of doors made it sportier than a typical sedan. It sold because it lacked a customer base and attempted to be a little of everything, and became an American icon for its trouble.
I say it’s when marketing starts saying their car can’t reach a large amounts of buyers that they start cutting corners in places. When was the Mustang the least liked? When they started selling them too large to be economical, too boring to be sporty, or with a backseat too small to be useful. I speak of the fastback roof that the new cars have.
They don’t necessarily have to advertise for everybody, but they shouldn’t just give up and say “why bother” to an interior just because it’s a sports car, or say “why bother” to an attractive exterior for a sedan just because it’s a sedan. It’s the little things that count in automotive design.
I suppose you didn’t mention design in your assessment, but I just wanted to bring that up. Speaking for the Instrumentalists, of course.
driving course :
It would be interesting to put a vote – Expressive / Instrumentalist – on the side of this post so we could say what we consider ourselves…
I would count myself as an “expressive instrumentalist.” I’ve hauled about 5,000 pounds of concrete in my Prius…though not all at once!
Except of course, on weekends when I wash my Prius and take it to the shore. That’s when I become an “instrumental expressivist.”
Yup, shades of grey! … or is that “gray?”
There are two types of people in the world – those who are, and those who wanna be…
Then there are those who want to aspire to who they want to be, but don’t really know who they are and think that what they are now may be A-OK, while others are not really quite sure.
Did you get that Roger? Roger, Over, Unger, Dunne.
Then we have the Judean People’s Front which is in sharp contrast to the People’s Front of Judea, which is considered to be a split-off from the Front of a Person’s Judea. That is if they’re circumcised…
Oy vay!
http://www.judeanpeoplesfront.org/
I pretty much have to agree with PCH on this one. We really aren’t all that unique. We live in an off the rack world because A) few of us could afford truely custom made (bespoke) things, and B) off the rack things suit most of the needs of most people.
So, marketing consists mainly of layering the expression on top of the instrumentality.
KatiePuckrik—–what she said.
Oversimplification and generalization often leads to errors in judgment.
Gottlieb:
Oversimplification and generalization often leads to errors in judgment.
Quite the opposite. Over-correcting for exceptions to the rule (aiming for the tail of the dragon) often leads to errors in judgment. Or, as H. L. Mencken said…
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.
Expressives perceive their vehicles as [yet another] expression of their personalities. They are what they drive.
Cars are like clothing.
A car with non-matching hubcaps is like wearing different socks.
A car with missing hubcaps is like wearing different shoes.
KatiePuckrik
These are the kind of berks who talk about “capturing the zeitgeist”
Impossible.
I drive a Jetta TDI to work on fuel I make myself.
I drive a 1965 E-type Jaguar on weekends, likely the least practical car, ever.
I do 90+% of the maintenance on both cars.
I’m confused… does that make me: A “Instrumessive” or an “Expressentalist”??
–chuck
http://chuck.goolsbee.org
sometimes a car is just a car.
The article’s description of Instrumentalist fits me better than the description of Expressive.
My Miata is my Swiss Army knife, great for commuting (well okay not great), schlepping (I have no idea what that means), joy riding, the works. It’s carried the occasional lumber product as well. And yes, it’s my dear friend and I love it so.
On the other hand, I do kind of like being seen in a small car, and a sports car. I’m an expressive in that sense (or a narcissist?).
While I appreciate Mr. Martineck’s column, I must assert that the Cambridge Strategy Center analysis is a load of hogwash.
Either that, or something like 90% of the car buyers would self-categorize as “Expressives”.
The SUV-as-Swiss-Army-Knife Instrumentalist analysis is patent nonsense.
There is NOTHING that an SUV does that, for 90%+ of their owners, wouldn’t be better accomplished (in the “Instrumental” sense) by a minivan, station wagon, hatchback or sedan.
Except that an SUV is the Suburban Un-minivan Vehicle that allows owners to engage in their bushwhacking-across-the-Serengeti fantasies while schlepping little Johnny and Jane to soccer practice.
For a *lot* of people, the car they drive is just another fashion accessory. The point of a Rolex watch is not how accurate it is, but to tell the world that you can waste that much money on a timepiece.
The same is true of most Ferraris, Porsches, Hummers, etc.
I call it “hogwash.”
Everybody brings different priorities to their dealer of choice.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about human beings, it’s that our individual priorities are ENORMOUSLY different. Tell me your priorities, and I’ll probably think you are FREAKING CRAZY.
And, I suppose, vice versa.
It’s like anyone’s taste in music. Or their attitudes towards tattoos — “cool” or “utterly freaking insane.” And any other human behavior you could name. We’re all over the spectrum. Some folks are “OK with” a broad spectrum of behavior; other folks can’t even comprehend how other people could be so stupid to do the things they do.
And so on. There’s just no way you could seriously try to pigeonhole car owners into just two categories. Maybe two thousand. Maybe two million.
The “study” is precisely 6 times dumber than a Sunday horoscope.
I know a lot of people that own three vehicles. A Pickup(utility, home improvement, moving, hauling, towing(boat?), a sports car(nice weather, weekends, evenings, cruising), and a daily driver(some beater car that gets decent mileage for the 50 mile round trip daily commute in rain or snow).
I think Katie’s points on the first page of comments are on point. Having said that, I would probably stick myself on the expressive side. Money constrains, so I made cruiserline ventiports for my Accord (stick). When I had my old (and aged) 77 toyota corolla, “Tochiro” years ago, when I started it on a cold day, I used to say “this car has pep in its engine.” No, I didn’t really think it made a dif, but it helped drive that wonderful illusion of car as personality and friend. It also harkened back to a wonderful children’s book from my toddler days, about a car named Gabriel wasting away in a used car lot, and desperately hoping someone will buy him. The first potential buyer is a lady, and Gabriel, eager to please, says, “I’ll show her I have pep in my engine!” and proceeds to scare the living daylights out of her. After Gabriel goes too slow with the next would-be buyer, a young kid, the dealer is desperate to get Gabriel off the lot, and when Tommy and his father come to the lot, and ask “do you have a car for $50 (probably about 700 in today’s $), the dealer points to Gabriel, who ultimately gets bought, taken home, painted, and given a garage. Did I say I was expressive? Check out my website, motorlegends.com
Whats the difference here between “expressive” and “instrumentalist” that also cant be summed up by “logical” and “emotional”? Everyone does things emotionally then to some degree,even to themselves,justifies it logically. this is why even emotional cars like a Cobra replica come in many different colours. A grey Snake replica and ones with nose to tail stripes in red would appeal to two totally different people. like Gnarles Barkley said “i wouldn’t call it schizophrenia but i will be at least two people today”.
Whats the difference here between “expressive” and “instrumentalist” that also cant be summed up by “logical” and “emotional”?
That isn’t it. I realize that the marketing speak and some of the examples make it confusing, as the marketing folks are often using too much jargon to be great communicators, but this isn’t their point.
The difference is in the way in which people relate to their cars. The expressives view the car as a tool meant to project the owner’s personality, while the instrumentalists view it as a separate entity with its own character, a bit like a friend or a pet.
It sounds gimmicky, but if you think through it, it does have some useful implications in decisions that automakers should make in respect to design as they consider how potential buyers view their offerings.
I look at my vehicles both logically and emotionally. Logically, it comes down to money, which dictates the care that I take, and thinking ahead as much as I can.
Emotionally I just want a car that I feel proud driving, not to show off to others, but more that I enjoy driving it and worrying about it. Having Jeeps, I even plan vacations around them. LOL
Pch101 :
May 27th, 2008 at 11:18 am
This editorial could have been condensed into the following statement:
“Individual people have individual tastes”.
No. People in western cultures like to believe that they are all unique, special people with their own unique, special values and quirks.
That’s ego-driven self delusion. In practice, you could use a few categories that combined could distill the essence of virtually everyone with near-complete accuracy. At the end of the day, most of us are a commodity, and few people truly stand apart from and above the crowd.
With that mentality you’d fit perfectly into “Brave New World”. I suppose you’d be an alpha of course looking down on us Betas and Deltas.
With that mentality you’d fit perfectly into “Brave New World”.
If your worldview was correct, your Honda would be handmade and unlike any other. But as it turns out, there are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of others, just like it.
As it turns out, we don’t really need that many unique products to satisfy our needs, because many of us have fairly similar needs and tastes. Instead of 200 million, perhaps a hundred are enough to do the trick. That’s fortunate — if all of our cars were handmade and fully customized, almost none of us could afford one.
Just so we’re clear here — I love it.
Well, if ‘expressive’ buyers want the best, wouldn’t they want the best daily driver as well?
What about people who choose two cars instead of one? Isn’t an Odyssey and a miata a better ‘expressive’ choice chan just a 3 series sedan?
To me it seems that each of us has to strike a balance between the two. Just because I prize reliability over performance in a DD, it doesn’t mean I need to choose the most boring car available. Is a Camry so much more useful than a Mazda 6?
This theory has too many holes in it.
i guess I’m a bit of both. Which is why all of the cars I love are somewhat weird. Cause they do everything, hit every button, fire every synapse, fulfill almost every desire.
Forest Turbo – it hauls ass, it’s unique, it can schlep a bunch of stuff, it’s good in bad weather, it can sort of off-road, it’s got aftermarket potential, it’s inexpensive (and built to stay that way! haha), it says something about the driver (I’m a butch lesbian! haha) etc etc.
Audi allroad Quattro (with 2.7T and 6 speed and some engine upgrades) same, only more of everything
that’s why i love performance wagons, etc more than pure sports cars. With a Forester XT or a V70R AWD, you don’t need to have a camcord AND a Miata… one car does everything.
Well, if ‘expressive’ buyers want the best, wouldn’t they want the best daily driver as well?
I blame the marketers for doing a poor job of explaining it, but this isn’t really it, either.
Allow me to take a shot at this, as I believe that this dividing line has been misunderstood by most of us. (Then again, I might also be misunderstanding aspects of it. It took me a bit of time to get this myself, particularly because some of the analogies are misleading.)
The objective here is to help automakers learn how to reach these two different markets, because each of them wants different things. The methodology divides car lovers into two basic camps. (This does not apply to all car buyers, but to those who are really fond of their cars.)
There is one group who view the car as an extension of their personalities. The expressive buyers see the vehicle as an extension of their own individual voices. For them, the car is meant to make a statement about who they are.
There is another who choose based upon the car’s own essence and what it brings to their lives. The instrumentalist sees the car as more of a member of the family, which has its own identity and isn’t just a tool for the driver.
If you want to reach the expressive crowd, you need to make a sharp styling statement and allow for customization. This is the buyer’s voice here, so you want to help them speak more clearly or, in some cases, louder. The car is a means of asserting their individuality (or at least their perception of it), so you need to provide a canvas that allows them to use it accordingly.
If you want to reach the instrumentalists, then you need to emphasize well-roundedness and the enrichment that the vehicle adds to their lives. The vehicle is not an extension of themselves, but an addition to their circle. That means thinking twice about overt trendiness, or about making styling statements that are highly polarizing. It also means emphasizing the vehicle’s versatility, so that it can be expected to step up when some unforeseen needs arise.
One confusing aspect of this is that SUV buyers are described by this article as being instrumentalist, when most of them are actually expressive. Minivans would generally be favored by instrumentalists. Instrumentalists want to haul their kids around and feel like good parents. SUV owners are trying to convince themselves that they didn’t sell out or lose their youth by becoming parents, and want to feel like badasses who can and will defend their kids from the threats of the outside world. Two very different mentalities applied to the same basic need of hauling people and their goods.
An analysis like this is actually pretty useful. Some examples that I can think of:
-The Nissan Quest was a flop, in part because of its unique styling. Had this analysis been conducted before the fact, it would have been obvious that the distinct styling angle was a bad idea for a minivan. In this case, the styling quirks sent the message that the Quest was not a well-rounded, balanced member of the family that could be trusted to serve them, which is what instrumentalists want. This group doesn’t want trendy, but solid and steady. Expressives in search of cargo haulers buy SUV’s and crossovers, not minivans.
-Honda was smart to create a spacy Civic coupe. This car gives expressive youth a chance to get trendy styling they can afford, which makes the statement that they want to make. Supporting an active aftermarket helps to deepen that loyalty. Combined with a more sedate sedan that reaches the instrumentalists, you end up with a product line that can serve both groups well.
-This helps to explain why a four-door Mustang would be a very bad idea. The Mustang is a car for the expressives. A sedan version at this stage would be the equivalent of wearing sensible shoes for a night out on the town. If anyone in Dearborn is listening – dump the Mustang sedan idea, and stick to refining the Mustang concept as a personal statement.
This is not about practical vs. impractical, dull vs. exciting, or performance vs. lack of performance. It often ends up shaking out that way, but those aren’t the key differences between them.
(By the way, Mr. Goolsbee, using this measuring stick, your Jag and Jetta both put you in the expressive camp, all the way.)
Alright I typed a detailed response and it failed to post, so I will quickly recap my thoughts:
1. This idea works better on a spectrum than as categories
2. There are cars that have been successful because they are both (BMW M3/5, WRX, xB, 4 door Wrangler, 300C)
3. Cars can be conceived for one reason and become popular for a different reason (Scion xB)
4. Except coupes and minivans, most genres need both
5. The Mustang sedan is a bad idea
There are cars that have been successful because they are both (BMW M3/5, WRX, xB, 4 door Wrangler, 300C)
Using this rubric, all of these are expressive designs.
-BMW = “Ultimate Driving Machine.” Expressive to the max, back seat or no.
-WRX and boy racer styling sends a clear message. Expressive.
-xB was meant to be a statement about youth cool. As it turns out, the older folks think that it tells the world that they are young at heart. Not what Toyota wanted to happen, but they did succeed in reaching expressives in both cases.
-SUV’s are almost certainly expressive. The old 70’s-era Broncos and International Harvesters weren’t. But since they became fashionable 20 years ago, they are used as personality extenders.
-300C is a hulky muscle car. Definitely expressive.
A car can have a back seat and a reliable drivetrain, and still target the expressives. It’s not as if expressives don’t carry groceries in their cars.
Putting a Miata (any Miata) in the garage next to ANY car/truck enables the “smile on your face” to come on. Every time you switch on the ignition, punch the gas, feel the precise steering, braking, 30 mpg…all is well! Yeah, owning a Miata is like getting a cold drink on a hot day…
how very very interesting . . . when i was reading your description of instrumentalists I was thinking: “Yup, that’s me.” While saying, “Hell no, that’s not me” while considering the expressive traits. But then you said that camcordians and SUVs show the plethora of instrumentalists out there and I am obviously not them. I would never drive those cars. Like you said, They do nothing well. They do everything ok. That would make me sick.
Thus, the more I think about it, I am an expressive. I just don’t own an elise because my family and wallet are prohibitive blessings and deficiencies (respectively). My kind of niche however is the hot hatch market. Most of the usefulness of the camcordian with most of the hooliganism of the sportscar. the compromise however is borne from my needs and my wants, not from my desire to have a car that is like a swiss army knife.
I think most people are like this. instrumentalists may be so by necessity as opposed to by desire.
Interesting article. I think I am an expressive. I am weak enough to fall within the “you are what you drive” camp. I love cars but find driving boring. I drive in the city where you have to be brain dead to deal with the traffic. And I find car trips on the interstate even more boring. I like the kind of driving you see in BMW ads. But that’s just not part of my life. All I really need is a Personal Transportation Appliance (a “Camcord”) but would drive one only as a last resort. But this makes me feel shallow.
I remember a quote from the de-motivation group. “You are unique……, just like everybody else”
Oh, for the days when the family car was primarily a mode of transportation, not an entertainment center on wheels.
wrong^(ice9).
The real axe on this issue is Money.
It’s the old DSP vs. CPU argument all over again.
Most businesspeople are intensely stupid and really only good at 3-4 things. -This is why everything on forbes.com looks like a damn powerpoint. It’s the only way they can understand anything.
If the MBTI and its 16-types-of-people theorem sounds dumb, this study is even dumber.
Given enough $$$ we are All non-extremist, Expressive Instrumentalists who would have 1 ultra-specific car (DSP) of each type for each purpose in our own personal 12-car garages. While money is scarce at all, Everything is a set of compromises (CPU).
This study exists only to clarify things for idiotic ‘managers’ who can only think if you split the world into 2 opposite extremes, the US Presidential Election of choice, if you will.
And the last time I checked, every single time I had a Decision Matrix in front of me with only 2 choices, they were usually opposite extremes, and both pretty much sucked in equal but opposing ways.
-Happy voting in November! :P