Finding the Automotive Sweet Spot
Consider the automobile market. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler have been selling record numbers of cars—especially the very profitable sport-utility vehicles (i.e., trucks with nice upholstery)—to the Baby Boomers. However, the bloom is off the rose because Boomers are aging out of their peak car-buying years at the rate of one every eight seconds.
Detroit’s car-buying sweet spot is a bell-shaped curve representing customers between thirty-five and forty-five years old; it peaks in the early forties. Boomers are now age forty-four to sixty-three. I am imagining the dialog in a boardroom at Ford: “Our customer has naturally aged out of our market. Does anyone see a problem here? No? Good. Well, let’s build ...
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