Fast Talk: Hard Drive

Robert A. Lutz

General Motors
Vice Chairman, Product Development
Detroit, Michigan

Our vehicles -- and i speak collectively for the American industry -- are much better than what many people believe. But we have to wait for this market fact to catch up with the product fact. One way to spur that along is to recapture the imagination of the public by making exceptional vehicles that stand out from the crowd -- vehicles that trigger the urge to buy. Whenever you do something extraordinary, something that captures the mood and fancy of the public, they'll buy it. Believe me, we have no problem selling the Hummer H2.

We need lots more creativity, lots more really exciting designs. Today, for example, there's a strong trend toward large aluminum wheels. In the aftermarket that supplies wheels to celebrity-owned Cadillac Escalades, there's no such thing as a wheel that's too big. They can look ridiculous, like wagon wheels, but it's the cool thing right now. That trend is moving into the mass market. Another major trend is what the trade calls "crossover vehicles" -- a vehicle that's too tall to be a station wagon but too low to be an SUV.

You're also going to see a lot more variety in body styles and shapes. It used to be that everyone marched in lockstep in terms of design. When the industry went hard-edge, everybody went hard-edge, and when it went soft, everybody went soft. Now companies realize that you can do a very exciting, new-looking car with crisp, hard edges. At the same time, you can execute a design that's soft and flowing. As long as they're executed superbly, both approaches can look modern and have a lot of legitimacy.

Tim Benner

Honda Motor Co.
Codesigner, Honda Element
Torrance, California

Coming up with exciting designs requires new approaches to innovation. Our challenge with the Element was to develop a totally new product for the Honda lineup that could coexist with the Honda Civic and that would target young gen-Y males.

Executives gave us carte blanche to understand how those guys were using their cars. The team did immersion research, going to frat houses and hanging out with surfers and mountain bikers. A lot of the Element's features came from understanding their lifestyles.

Our conceptual framework at Honda starts with the idea of a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid are themes that are pressing to the buyer and how they tie into the product. For the Element, one theme was "hobby space." We wanted to make sure that the car could fit two mountain bikes or a 10-foot surfboard. Another was "campground friendly." The car could sleep two people comfortably. A third theme was "road-trip friendly." We had images of surfers and mountain bikers resting inside the car, eating food and spilling soda on the floor. That led to spill-proof material on the seats and a wipeable flat floor. All of those features relate to different themes that we created for the product, and all of those themes directly tie back to something like a young man's first freedom.

But the Element isn't just for young men. We also developed it with its secondary buyers in mind: the new gen-X family that didn't want to buy into mainstream vehicles and that didn't want to sell out to convention. I'd like to think the sum of this vehicle is greater than its many parts. It's tough for people to put their finger on it. The Element is quirky, it's funky, it's independent, it's maverick.

Karen Marderosian

VW of America Inc.
Director of Marketing
Auburn Hills, Michigan

Our job is to make an emotional connection. We look at what our brand is about and what each product has to offer, put them in a cultural context, and emphasize what's important to our audience.

We start from a position of strength on this. If you look at the new Beetle, with its imagery, its iconic nature, just the shape of the vehicle -- it stirs up emotions. The Beetle is a social vehicle. There's a friendly, human, approachable aspect to the car. That's especially true of the Beetle convertible. We joke that people who drive convertibles give off the message, "Look at me, but don't talk to me." People who drive Beetles want to talk.

If you look at what we call the "Bubble" spot, which we used to launch the Beetle convertible, it's really about isolation. The guy is caught up in his world. It isn't a depressing world. He just kind of goes along with it, does his thing, and doesn't think very much about it. Then, all of a sudden, the Beetle convertible comes along and turns his world around: Maybe there's something better out there. The subtlety in that message is what makes it so powerful. There's a product message in there, but it's really about what the product can bring to your life.

One of the best-known ads that we've done, "Sunday Afternoon," had two guys in a Golf, driving around L.A., and they stop to pick up a stinky chair. If you think about it, that spot was really about a roomy hatch. But it also connects the car with a relevant situation in life: Sometimes you're putting a bike on top of your car and driving to the mountains; sometimes you don't have anything to do. It was a subtle, honest approach.