| Are you worried about
high gas prices? Nervous about what other people would think if you
bought a hulking sport utility vehicle right now? Are you anxious about
the war in Iraq, or think this is hardly a time to be promoting a vehicle
that spells CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION in all capital letters?
Then you’re not a potential Hummer H2 owner.
Which doesn’t bother the people at Hummer, or their supremely
self-assured customers one bit.
When historians of American popular culture get around
to assessing our times, the Hummer H2 will deserve at least a footnote.
Few automobiles since the legendary fin-tailed Cadillacs of the 1950s
have so proudly proclaimed that side of the American personality that
tells the world, “We’ve got it, we’re going to flaunt
it, and we don’t care what the French think about it.”
The H2 has been a smashing success for General Motors Corp., which
has taken its lumps in recent years for designing too many vehicles
that don’t capture the popular imagination or command premium
prices. The H2 does both. In a little more than a year on the market,
the H2 has vaulted to No. 1 in sales among large, luxury SUVs, ahead
of the Lincoln Navigator and the Land Rover Range Rover, among others.
H2 sales dipped 5% in February compared to January, but Hummer dealers
still have a relatively lean 38 days’ supply in stock. GM doesn’t
report Hummer division profits, but it’s a good bet that GM could
earn more selling 40,000 or so Hummers a year than it does selling a
million of its small and midsized cars.
Still, these are tricky times for marketers of big SUVs. The economy
is wobbly. Nominal gasoline prices are as high as they have been in
years. For Hummer there’s the extra issue of how television viewers
will react to watching military Humvees – GM sells the civilian
versions of these as “H1s” – maneuvering in hostile
deserts one minute, and in the next see an irreverent advertisement
for the H2.
“We recognize our heritage with the H1,” says Liz Vanzura,
director of advertising for Hummer and one of the key architects of
the H2’s ascent as a popular culture icon. But in light of the
war, she says, Hummer will be “highly sensitive and react very
respectfully.”
That means that GM and Hummer will be careful in the near term
about where they promote the H2 and how, says Ms. Vanzura, who before
joining Hummer had a big hand in crafting Volkswagen’s highly
successful late 1990s advertising. When we spoke on
Friday, Ms. Vanzura said Hummer’s advertising agencies were
monitoring was coverage on CNN and other networks “minute by minute.”
GM’s policy is that when CNN goes to around the clock, exclusively
war coverage, GM’s divisions will park their ads until the dust
settles.
But Ms. Vanzura said that as of Friday, Hummer planned to stay
the course with its advertising. That includes going ahead with a new
campaign around NCAA basketball tournament coverage. Hummer has created
some new, “a little bit more edgy” ads to appeal to the
basketball audience. She described them as “be your own dog type
of spots,” that play up the H2’s image as a vehicle for
individualists and free spirits. One, she said, will show the H2 bounding
around to a rock and roll beat, with superimposed good conduct maxims,
such as “eat your vegetables,” that it’s understood
H2 owners scorn. The tag line: “Hummer. Like Nothing Else.”
Indeed, the H2 is like nothing else, which is why it aggravates
people on the other end of the political and social spectrum from meat-eating
H2 aspirants. The H2 comes with a 32-gallon gas tank for a good reason.
GM doesn’t officially publish a fuel economy rating. That’s
because the 6,400 pound truck is classified as a medium duty truck,
and is thus off the regulatory radar.
At a time when questions about American dependency on foreign oil
are back in the news, it’s tempting to ask which vehicle will
win the battle for supremacy among the trendsetters: The Hummer, or
gas-electric hybrid cars like the Honda Civic hybrid or the Toyota Prius.
This is America. The answer could be both.
Ms. Vanzura says she gets asked a lot about whether she’s
worried by $2 a gallon gas - and she has the answer. “There’s
a certain type of person who’s very much attracted to a truck
that’s very differentiated, and aspirational and costs $55,000,”
she says. These are people, she says, who buy expensive jewelry, have
a yacht here and there, a house in Aspen and “pretty much make
their own decisions.”
In other words, the H2 isn’t for everybody, it’s just
for the people who want it, can afford it and are comfortable indulging
themselves with the fruits of their success. GM figures that’s
about 40,000 people a year – which isn’t that many against
overall U.S. vehicle sales of 16 plus million a year. “We’ll
put our product out there and see what happens, “ Ms. Vanzura
says.
Some day, gas prices, tougher fuel economy regulations or, more
likely, the changing tides of fashion, could relegate the H2 to the
automotive boneyard next to those tall-tailed Caddys.
But rich Americans have always liked things big and bold, and Hummer
caters to that cultural reality in a way few other American vehicles
do.
And for those Hummer fans who do worry about fuel efficiency, Hummer
dealers now carry a product even Greenpeace could love: The Hummer Tactical
Mountain Bike, made of aircraft aluminum and patterned after bicycles
that are used by the military. At a list price of $795, it may be the
best opportunity most of us ever get to own a Hummer.
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