Pickups drive girls crazy! Okay, we like guys with pickups too. But really, how are we going to haul around all those important things in our life if we don’t have a pickup? It appears that some women are beginning to buy their own.
Recently, while doing research for a new campaign, Chevrolet discovered that 15% of truck buyers are female and an even larger number borrow their husband’s trucks. They should not have been surprised. Women buy more than half of the new vehicles in the U.S. and influence up to 80% of all purchases.
Typically truck commercials feature some dust coated man hoisting large items into the back of his pickup. This same concept can be found in commercials for all makes and models, including Chevy. To get away from this cliché, the new Silverado advertisement features a rodeo scene in which a woman loads her truck for the competition. The voiceover says, “A woman, her truck, and a 1200-pound passenger…and a ribbon that goes on her wall, not in her hair.” Strong imagery to make a point! Men are not the only truck drivers out there.
I love this spot because it speaks to my Texas soul, where women are industrious, ingenious and independent, and where the love affair with the horse is still strong.
According to Tim Mahoney, CMO for Chevrolet, that is exactly what point they are trying to get across: “A vital part of telling a more multi-dimensional story about pickup owners was to shine the light on pickup women, people who inspire our owners for the same reasons and in very similar ways as men do.”
During the research they asked the pickup guys who their heroes were and most were family members, many women. What better way to reach the men’s hearts than feature one. So not only do these commercials speak to and for the women, but they also identify with the men—which is of course the largest truck buying group. A double whammy for Chevrolet!
