Expect for a home, an automobile is the single largest investment a high percentage of people will ever make. It is often the biggest drain on the household and while most houses increase in value cars depreciate in value. Public transportation is cheap but in many parts of the world isn ' t set up good enough to be an ideal way of living. Most car owners are aware that it is becoming very expensive to own and operate an automobile, but many have only a small notion exactly how big a car can take on a family budget. It isn ' t even so much the gas the kills you or the insurance like most people think. It is the long term amount you pay in repairs that really does you in. In order for a family to have a car they need to make sure they have enough money saved up in an emergency fund so that if repairs are needed they can afford it without going on debt and paying high interest. A car in other parts of the world is a luxury only to the people that have the highest financial status. It is interesting that in North America we look at it as normal living to own a car and don ' t appropriate our convenience.
A car in many ways for young people is a representation of their youth. The power, speed excitement all characteristics of youthful masculinity makes cars very attractive to the young crew. We have a society that has been pressed upon by social conditioning that having a fast and nice car will get them highly attractive women. It all comes down to target market research. Marketing and implementation of survey research. All driven to satisfy basic human egos. When you shake your head at the amount of large gas guzzling SUVs on the roads and highways you travel, wondering how earth people can afford to drive these luxury vehicles - well its the power of marketing.
Someone after all must be purchasing these large, heavy and expensive vehicles after all. Otherwise the manufacturers and even dealerships would not still be in business and around. A simple timely question to ask - What are the speed limits on the roads that the vehicle is going to be driven.
It ' s not unlike seeing a high end sport scar holding up traffic on the Trans - Canada highway doing the exact speed limit of 100 km per hour? It amazing to me that financially a young adult will justify paying interest on a car to get it right away. You can bet that over the course of time that the cost will add up to much more. There are qualities of owning car that I think are beneficial for a youth. Such as responsibility, Independence but at the same time when I see young people defining them - selves by the car they own. Some people can just not be content with themselves and their intrinsic measures of self expression. An expensive car is mostly just a toy. In terms of cost it makes no sense for a family or a young person to buy an expensive car yet we see it happen all the time. When I go to buy a car I ' m not going to get expensive rims or the most expensive speakers in my car. Sure it nice to have these toys but I feel that there are other things in my life that have more value that I want to put my money into. Having an expensive car will only give me a brief self of esteem and further consume my ego that I need more superficial objects to fulfill me. It closing, purchasing a car is a big investment and although most people just like at it logically from a finical standpoint you need to look at it emotionally from a social standpoint that most people are not paying attention to logic but rather their emotions of what a pimp they would look like if they had an expensive car.
In the end it can be said that in mass market broadcast advertising and more up to date targeted internet sales tactics sales and marketing comes down to stroking customer ' s egos.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
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