The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Surely it is time our cars were as smart as our phones

By Steve Price

August 2, 2013 | 9 min read

As Google readies self-driving cars, Plan B Studio's Steve Price says smarter use of technology could breathe new life into the motoring industry.

Lots of muscle, but where's the brains?

In 2013, with its ever-weakening economies, Europe suffered its worst year for car sales ever, prompting many manufacturers to start closing production lines altogether. In June 2013 the US experienced its strongest car sales since 2007. However some people are questioning whether the thirst for gas-guzzling, muscle-machined cars has finally reached its plateau, particularly in America, where the NY Times recently declared ‘The End of Car Culture’.

Being here and driving in and around Florida for a few weeks seems to counter this debate. I’ve seen a lot more 4×4s, SUVs and pick-up trucks than imaginable; most match London Buses for size. Gas (petrol) here is roughly half what we pay in the UK, and yet for Americans it’s almost double what they are used to paying. Yet despite record car sales, it’s not difficult to see how this spike in gas prices might be a contributing factor influencing consumer behaviour, alongside government austerity measures and global economic pressures.

But these periods of feast or faminine are not new to the US, or the UK. Not so long ago, it wasn’t finance and banking affecting consumer habits but the gold rush - a fraught period that saw hundreds of thousands of people up sticks and migrate across the land in search of riches, transforming the American landscape and making barren the towns and cities it abandoned after it had raped it of its minerals. Not too dissimilar to our new era of social change.

Arise, a new social influencer, one I am coining the ‘d0rk-download’; wherever the d0rk-download goes so too does the money – look at ‘Tech-City’ or ‘Silicon Roundabout’ – the shithole that was once (and still is) Old Street/Shoreditch/Dalston/Hackney populated by designers and artists now transformed once again by ‘start-ups’ (i.e. new small businesses) and big brands such as Google and venture capitalists – the financial hawks, hovering above. History repeating itself? Indeed.

An article by Jaclyn Trop in the New York Times (Detroit, Embracing New Auto Technologies, Seeks App Builders) shined a light on the d0rk-download. It’s migrating, leaving the Silicon Valley nest in search of new prospects, new ‘minerals’ to mine and reap; only this time the tools are less pick-axe, shovel, horse and wagon and more Wi-Fi-connected, cloud-stored, remote-working laptop wielding workers.

And where are these pioneers landing? Detroit. Or rather, Detroit has started attracting local talent with the promise of a new challenge – the automotive industry which is subsequently attracting those bored of the Valley. Not to mention cheap rent, accommodation and remote working.

Here’s why I hope our d0rk-download might be great: we hired a new Nissan Rogue on my recent trip to Florida, USA. To describe it as basic would be complimenting it. It has a CD player – which is useful in 2013. The dashboard panel and console has more plastic than a child’s Christmas present collection and hasn’t really changed since that of my Dad’s Ford Capri thirty years ago. Even if it had sat-nav I’d rather pay for 4G and use Google Maps on my iPhone4s and I’m still having to plug my iPod in via a phono-cable in to the auxiliary connector which seems to be connected to the engine alternator, meaning the volume increases or decreases according to the speed. This is not a feature but an annoying dysfunction. This is 2013, right?

No wonder the automotive industry needed a bailout and its sales declined. Your smartphone probably costs $400-700 but compare that to its use and function and whether you could ‘live without it’ and it’s a small price to pay to be ‘connected’. A moderately good car will cost you $30,000-$60,000 and while car safety, engine and brake technology as well as performance has improved, what else do you get? For most of us we can actually survive without them; for those that can’t surely it is time that the basic functionality of the car starts to match the technology in your pocket?

It was Trop’s article that reminded me of a pitch I worked on three years ago, a digital campaign planned for a US-based car manufacturer. During the process I was curious about the use of technology used in cars beyond that of the engine and so I began researching. My interest then and now ultimately lay in the link between the driver and the car with technology and social data. There was talk of the (then) BMW range and Audi including mobile Wi-Fi connectivity, and obviously car dashboards and interactive features have developed but in three years not that much has changed.

The idea we devised was based on creating an app that worked in direct communication with the car’s engine management system. The plethora of possibilities to further extend the intelligence and practical usage of both the vehicle, engine and (most importantly) its driver and occupants was really exciting. Not to mention create a campaign that could extend to a meaningful product. Alas we were perhaps ahead of ourselves and the budget to create it. After reading Jaclyn Trops’ article I was quietly satisfied that we were perhaps ahead of the game, in theory, if not in practice.

But aside from my own self-congratulatory pat on the back it made me wonder – regardless of whether sales are slowing, or have slowed, it seemed obvious to me three years ago that technology in cars was woefully out-of-date. For example, why is DAB radio still not properly available (I don’t own a car so it might be now)?

Why am I not able to just slot my smartphone in to the car? Why does it and my car not sync up? Why does my friend who just bought an almost brand new German-made car have to load mp3s on to a tiny chip to load in to his car only to have to wait for minutes while they load?

Why, oh why is the user interface of almost all sat-nav and in-car interactive menus so appalling? Why isn’t my car as smart as my phone and vice versa?

Better still why aren’t they more intuitive, intelligent and refined?

Perhaps this new wave of social influence, this new partnership of technologists and automotive designers, might spark the rebirth of once beleaguered cities like Detroit and simultaneously inspire REAL innovation that leads to less is more – fewer cars, but more smarter modes of transport inspired by a hybrid of automation and technology fuelled by intelligent design, craft and creation.

Yet the car industry still doesn’t seem to be getting it, as evidenced by an Audi America representative quoted in the New York Times: “We want to keep the brand on the cutting edge through technological innovations like LED headlights and using social media as a communications tool.” LED lights and apps as comms tools? There’s your major mistake right there.

The article goes on to talk about how making documentary style film adverts is a way forward. Really? No. Make adverts about how car manufacturers have made the need and use of a car more relevant to our lives using technology in our pocket.

Better still don’t spend money making, for example, Lexus’s ‘Amazing Motion’: lexus-int.com/amazinginmotion – with your parallax vertical and horizontal scrolling (which is really well done, but urgh!), trying to prove how cool you are with ‘look we can draw’ sketches and interviews with real earnest looking designers blowing their own horns about merging design, with technology with artists. Build better cars with better systems and apps instead.

Clotaire Rapaille said: ‘The stronger the emotion, the more clearly an experience is learned.’ So d0rk-download, Detroit et al the car manufacturers – You want to impress Generation Y? To sell more cars? Don’t try to fool them or us with ‘documentary films’, free music, ‘collaborative’ based projects to try and look cool or LED lights – it’s just fluff and nonsense. We’re not idiots. Invest heavily in the new d0rk-download arrivals. Make your product relevant to our lives, again.

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +