Despite all the stories about how millennials are broke and don't care about car ownership, automakers make some desperate attempts to connect with this demographic. So of course the #brands go were the kids are, on social media and they fail miserably at it.
Let's take a look at Honda's fake #Skelatakover of their Twitter feed. It starts out innocent enough
So that was corny, but I'll give it a pass. But this...
So Honda wants to be associated with "internet trolls"? That sounds like a group of people that will give a brand a nice positive boost. To quote our own Mike Ballaban, "That's fucking atrocious...it's just another #brand trying to be #hip because the #millennials are #nostalgic #for #the #80s #and #twitter." At 33 I am technically not a millennial, but at 27 Mike is, and while Ballaban doesn't speak for all millennials, I think he accurately sums up the general reaction to this.
Awhile back Automotive News published the results of an Autotrader survey regarding the automotive shopping habits of millienial buyers. In turns out that only one percent of car buyers use social media to shop for cars.
"Millennials are apathetic about whether auto Web sites or brands have a social presence," Helms said. She added that 78 percent of millennials in the study said their attitude toward a car brand would not change if the brand had a social networking presence.
As an automotive writer, I "follow" all the major car brands on Twitter. Yet I find their tweets to be pretty much useless in terms of giving me any actual information. I've spoken with hundreds of car buyers, not one of them has ever mentioned a brand's Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or social whatever having an impact on what car they want. So if Facebook "likes" and Tweets don't sell product, why do automakers try so hard to use an advertising medium that clearly doesn't matter?
Because if there is one thing millienals hate in terms of marketing... it's brands that try too hard.
If you have a question, a tip, or something you would like to to share about car-buying, drop me a line at AutomatchConsulting@gmail.com and be sure to include your Kinja handle.