Consumer product marketers have long known that women make most of the household buying decisions. That's why mega-marketers like Procter & Gamble unashamedly target the majority of their products, and their product promotion, to moms specifically and women in general.
Car makers have discovered that women are also a key demographic when it comes to buying a new automobile, but they have, for the most part, veered away from creating a car specifically for women.
Now Honda is looking to shake up the industry with a new sub-brand of the Honda Fit called, in a fill-in-the-blank kind of way, "She's." It's pinktastic, and has nothing to do with Breast Cancer Awareness other than an affinity for the feminine hue.
It is very clearly designed with women in mind. It's not news in Japan — witness its 2010 campaign, above — but word is just spreading beyond about the Honda Fit She's. It's sold in two exterior colors: pink, or shades of brown and white "to match the color of eyeshadow," accordingto a Honda executive. Honda refers to the car as "adult cute," noting the pink stitching in the seats, steering wheel and floor mats, as well as the heart that replaces the apostrophe in the She's brand logo.
Honda has added a few other bells and whistles designed to appeal to the female buyer by focusing attention on her skin. For example, the car includes windshield glass that reduces ultraviolet rays 99 percent and an air conditioning system called "Plasmacluster" that Honda says can improve a driver's skin quality. The starting price of the Honda Fit She's is attractively low at $17,500.
Actually, Honda isn't the first automobile manufacturer to try its hand at manufacturing a car for women. It hopes not to follow in the footsteps of earlier failed attempts, such as the 1955 Dodge LaFemme, a pink-and-white car that had a handy place for ladies to store a matching purse and rain hat. It was a flop.
Time will tell if the Honda Fit She's is fit for Japanese women. It may be well suited to that market: Honda is targeting the 50 percent of Japanese women who, following tradition, are staying out of the workforce, concentrating instead on being homemakers. That may be one reason that, even if the Honda Fit She's is a hit in Japan, the little pink car is unlikely to show up on other continents anytime soon. Tell us your thoughts on Honda's pink femme-mobile below.
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