Pitt group finds surprising attitudes toward hybrid cars
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A Honda Motor Co. Insight hybrid vehicle
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The world's automakers may have a tough time convincing Gen Y'ers, arguably the most important group of consumers these days, to buy hybrid cars, according to research done by a University of Pittsburgh student marketing group.
The group of 19 students, called "Pros In Motion," worked with Honda this semester as part of a College of Business Administration class called "Projects In Marketing."
They competed to be one of only three groups of student marketers from across the country to make a presentation to Honda officials in California.
Although they weren't chosen for that honor, they did turn up some interesting findings about how the college-age population feels about greener cars.
In a survey of about 1,100 students, the group discovered 77 percent strongly agreed that hybrids were effective in protecting the environment.
But only a third of the students surveyed thought it was important for people to actually drive a hybrid, and 41 percent said they would not be willing to pay more for a hybrid.
Only 29 percent thought that driving a hybrid made a positive statement about them.
"The thing that we infer from the data is that Gen Y is as environmentally conscious as anybody else, but they are not willing to pay a huge premium or make sacrifices in performance nor appearance to drive an environmentally friendly vehicle," said Pitt Business professor Bob Gilbert, who heads up the group of students.
That conclusion is particularly important for car makers intent on selling more hybrids because Gen Y - the roughly 18- to 30-year-old children of baby boomers - is the second largest generation in history.
The survey results are also relevant because Honda has been selling far fewer hybrid subcompact Insights than they anticipated, and the students in the marketing project said that few of those they surveyed had even heard of the car model.
According to trade publication Automotive News, Honda, which sells the Insight starting at $19,800, initially had a goal of 90,000 sales for this sales year, then downsized that goal to 60,000 because of the poor economy.
Since it was launched in March, only 17,530 have been sold, which equals an annual sales rate of about 25,000.
Despite not being selected to make a presentation to Honda officials, the students and Dr. Gilbert were proud of their campaign.
"They did things a bit differently than some of the other marketing projects we've done," Dr. Gilbert said. "They used flash mobs, for instance, in which a group of people create attention-getting situations - in our case, around campus.
"They created a conga line and paraded through the library one evening while everyone was studying.
They also did the freeze frame thing as well, where they came to a dead stop and stood in place like statues for 20 minutes.
On the day of an event, they were motionless and pointing in the direction of where there were Insight cars on display and where the event was taking place."
Honda gave the group $2,500 to do the marketing campaign for the Insight. "When we calculated the value of the campaign, it came to about $20,000, compared to the $2,500 we received," said Megan DeMarco, a senior finance and marketing major.
"One of our friends designed a Web site for $100, someone else did seem videos for us and we got a lot of stuff for free. That really helped," she added.
Brendan Piccora, a senior majoring in marketing, said the experience proved valuable for him. "Certainly it was the most real life experience we've had, especially for those of us who plan to go into advertising and public relations," he said.
"One thing that I did notice was that cohesiveness was required to make it all flow well. The campaign events tied in with advertising, and it all stemmed from research. I learned how to look at things from a big picture perspective."
First Published December 23, 2009 12:00 am
