June 28, 2005
How to Market Hummers to the Masses
By JEREMY W. PETERS
DETROIT
HUMMER is a brand comfortable with its skin, or sheet metal, as it were. And it knows exactly who buys its trucks.
Typically, Hummer buyers have not been pragmatists on a tight budget. Practicality and value, after all, have never been part of Hummer's appeal.
The problem with aiming at such a narrow demographic, Hummer has learned, is that you can sell only so many $50,000 supersize sport utility vehicles. So last month, Hummer introduced the H3, a squatter, scaled-down version of its top-selling H2. The H3 is being billed as the Hummer for people and pocketbooks of all sizes.
In one commercial in the new H3 campaign, a group of exasperated Hummer executives stand around a boardroom table, shuffling through vehicle drawings as they try to come up with the next hot product. "Something new - we've been there," groans one of them. Then comes the entrance of Ed the Courier, who is so short that his shoulders barely reach the executives' waistlines. "Why not make a smaller one?" Ed asks as he reaches up to hand an envelope to someone at the table. The executives all turn and look at Ed - then at one another - with "Why didn't we think of that?" expressions.
About 17 inches shorter in length and 6 inches lower in height than the H2, the H3 is petite by Hummer standards. It's also the least expensive Hummer, with a base price around $30,000.
Because this is Hummer's first vehicle that is not out-of-reach for most Americans, it had to create advertisements with mass-market appeal, a challenge it never faced before.
"Hummer has a huge opportunity as a brand to expand into lots of segments down the road," said Liz Vanzura, Hummer's ...