While I do retain a vivid flashback of breaking my arm playing basketball, there seems to be a plethora of other things that have been erased from my memory: Time outs, accidentally killing the class gold fish, and mini-vans.
There was a time when every family I knew owned a mini-van. My family used our teal blue Plymouth Voyager for hauling kids to soccer practice and hauling furniture to my grandmother’s house. Today, these versatile vehicles are almost obsolete.
I can understand how something becomes outdated when a more improved and functional model comes along, but the truth is, mini-vans can be considered superior vehicles on many different levels. For example, the Chevrolet Traverse (a crossover SUV) is slightly larger in length, width, and height than the Toyota Sienna (a mini-van). However, the Sienna has 43.6 cubic feet of space behind the third row of seats, compared to the Traverse’s 24.4 cubic feet. And although it may be cumbersome to deal with, the Sienna has a removable second row of seats, which significantly increases the amount of cargo room available. The Traverse’s second and third rows merely fold down. Not to mention, mini-vans consistently get better gas mileage than SUVs, which makes them better for the environment. In addition, mini-vans lack the stature and weight of an SUV, but they are less likely to roll over when making sharp turns.
So if the mini-van is the more economical and practical choice, how come there seems to be none on the roads these days?
I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point during my adolescent years, the mini-van not only became outdated, but it also became uncool. They became synonymous with the soccer mom stereotype. The mom who wears her bath robe to in the mornings while making rounds for the carpool and the one who wears her sweat pants to PTA meetings because she didn’t have enough time to change between walking to dog and returning those overdue VHS tapes to Blockbuster. On the flip side, these new age SUV moms seem to have it together. There is a certain persona and aura that surrounds the middle-age female suburbanite who drives an SUV. And it seems to be the exact opposite of the mini-van soccer mom.
When it comes time for me to buy a car so I can haul my 2.5 kids to school and soccer, I’m not sure whether or not the mini-van will be back in fashion, but I’m guessing that these commercials might have some influence on bringing back its swagger.
-Sarah Shelness, future soccer mom
4) The blog “What happened to the minivan” encompasses some very relevant aspects of perceptual maps and how companies utilize these business techniques in order to understand the marketplace and where consumers view their products in relation to others available. For example the minivan, as mentioned in the blog is becoming and ever more scare vehicle on America’s roads, largely due to the “uncool” status it gathered thanks to negatively toned modern vocabulary such as ‘soccer mom’. The Toyota Sienna recognized this, most likely through evaluating perceptual maps of their minivans alongside SUV’s on scales such as cool versus practical capability. Although minivans most likely scored similarly on the practical capability scale when compared to SUV’s, the cool factor was probably significantly lower. This led Toyota to create revolutionary campaigns such as those shown in the blog that try to re-establish the Sienna minivan as a car for the cool. All of this thanks to a simple perceptual map.
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ReplyDeleteMy mom is a typical soccer mom except for the fact that she was hauling me and my friends to dance and cheerleading practices instead of soccer games, and because she refused to drive a min-van. She has hated them ever since I can remember and she has passed her hatred onto me – we both refuse to ever drive a mini-van but why? As Sarah pointed out in her blog, they are extremely practical and efficient cars so we should be open to driving them but for some reason they are negatively associated with the mommy image. Today, I think of soccer moms driving sporty SUVs or station wagons and I think of old people driving mini-vans or those moms that still walk around in their clothes they have had for years. Mini-vans are outdated and they don’t look near as cool as the latest sporty SUVs you see parked at soccer fields every weekend; this where the idea of the perceptual map comes into play in regard to mini-vans and SUVs. Suppose my two categories for the axes of my map were practicality and coolness/up to date. On my map, mini-vans would be high on the side of practicality but at the very bottom for the coolness factor. An SUV however, would be pretty high, though underneath the mini-van, for practicality and it would be at the top for coolness, and because the SUV provided more of both of my two criteria, I would have to go with the SUV which I actually do drive now. A perceptual map is used to determine where brands are perceived in consumer’s minds and they are helpful at determining future positioning. Dealerships with mini-vans should look deeper into the current perceptual map in regard to mini-vans and determine a way to position the mini-van as a much cooler and current vehicle, just as Toyota is doing with the newer commercials like the one shown in the blog.
ReplyDelete-Anne Davis
The demise of the minivan: a tragedy or a sign of the gradual sophistication of American culture? I think this post is a great in that it made me think about how minivans are positioned on the perceptual map as well as the consumer behavior insights of moms today. It seems to me that when it comes down to buying an SUV or a minivan, moms are looking at the grid of practically vs. sportiness. Whether it’s a generational difference or not, the moms of today are not quite ready to completely sell out and still want to still have a cool ride. The elegant luxury sedan is not practical for sticky hands and carpool and the convertible does not have a backseat for the baby and sends the wrong impression at PTA meetings. So what’s left? Moms can choose the minivan (a roach on wheels with automatic doors) or the SUV (a king of the road with space, power and aesthetics). Mom are definitely taking safety into consideration and the minivan offers better safety ratings and is slightly cheaper. So why are moms choosing the less economical and practical minivan over an SUV? I think it’s because moms believe they are worth the extra money and would rather take a risk than have a little piece of them die every time they get behind the wheel of a minivan that reminds them that they are now their mother. These women have three kids, two dogs, a mortgage, and have a husband who drives a convertible. I am not judging these moms for living on the edge and choosing to be a little sportier and a little less practical.
ReplyDelete-Olivia