One more time. Very few people buy the products they need. They buy the products that are SOLD to them. Ask any advertising professional or media person. That's their business.
No other factor in purchasing decisions carries anything close to advertising's weight. It may be difficult for you to understand or believe this because you, like most folks here, are probably more a "thinker" than a "feeler." Trust me, you're atypical. Fifty years ago, pickup trucks were for tradespeople and farmers. A 1970s teenage boy would do almost anything to avoid having to drive dad's pickup on a date. SUVs were for hunters, campers, and sportsmen. "Normal" people didn't buy them because they were clumsy, ugly, and "drove like trucks," which is what they were. Then came CAFE. Trucks were exempt from CAFE regulations. The automakers despised CAFE, so they began advertising trucks and SUVs heavily. If you can't guess what happened next, just read the first paragraph at the top of this message. The ads still push pickups, SUVs, and now crossovers (clumsy, topheavy, overweight, overpowered station wagons). In fact, the automakers advertise almost nothing else. So people buy pickups, SUVs, and crossovers, regardless of what they really need. They literally never even consider anyhing else. That's why both Lee and I see driveways here in the midwest stuffed with 3 or 4 or 5 vehicles, and every bloody one of them is a pickup or SUV. When Hyundai wanted to establish themselvs in the US market in the 1980s, they advertised their subcompact Excel. It wasn't a very good car, but they sold a lot of them, because they advertised it. If the automakers wanted to sell small cars, ICEV or EV, they'd advertise them. They don't, and they don't. When the automakers want to sell EVs in the US, they'll advertise them here. They don't, and they don't. David Roden, EVDL moderator & general lackey To reach me, don't reply to this message; I won't get it. Use my offlist address here : http://evdl.org/help/index.html#supt = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = If you made a column of things you're pretty sure you know, and then made another column of how you know those things, most of that column is like: "Some guy told me." It's just clickbait and hearsay. Goes into the head, locks onto a feeling, you're like: "That sounds good. I'm gonna tell other people that." And that's how brand marketing works, and also fascism, we're finding. -- Marc Maron = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ Address messages to ev@lists.evdl.org No other addresses in TO and CC fields UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub ARCHIVE: http://www.evdl.org/archive/ LIST INFO: http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org