Dude where's my car. Product & Marketing Innovation Deep Dive

Dude, where’s my car?Dude, where’s my car?
The “complicated” relationship between
the automotive industry and Millennials
Product and Marketing
Innovation Deep Dive

About this report
This report is the first follow-up to Good Rebels’ Millennials
and automotive research study ‘Dude, where’s my car?’.
This report will not be about how to develop ads to engage
Millennials. we hope your advertising agency has that covered.
Instead it will explore how product planning, marketing and
communications professionals can work together NOW to
develop and monetise services as well as products that will
appeal to the next generation of car buyers.
We’ll explore the findings of our research in the context of the
wider market trend of the collaborative economy.
The overwhelming findings from our report show that
Millennials WILL buy cars, but just not as we know it.
Download the full research report at: goodrebels.com
Good Rebels | Product and Marketing Innovation | 2

“If the trends seen in this report become reality, a business based purely
on production and volume sales will fail. Traditional OEMs must become
service-based businesses to thrive.
The Spotify and Netflix generation is as comfortable sharing and
subscribing to their driving options as they are to their entertainment.
Smart players will place equal emphasis on monetising services as they will
innovating their product range.
In almost every sector the 21st Century has seen the manufacturing
giants of the 20th overtaken by nimbler, more forward thinking
competitors. Will Toyota and Ford go the same way as Kodak and Nokia?
Or will they have the courage to balance an increasingly out-dated model
with something fit for the next 100 years?”
Kate Cooper, Chief Strategy Officer, Good Rebels

Foreword
Last week a member of the Good Rebels
team put down a deposit on a vehicle
that they had never driven, never
touched, never seen with their own eyes
– only in pictures online.
It’s not in production yet. They’ve never
talked to a representative from the
company that plans to manufacture it
and certainly haven’t visited a dealership.
And they made the decision to put down
a non-refundable deposit of $1000 via
the OEM’s website.
Why?
Because they were so compelled by the
product, the proposition and the way
they marketed it that they, alongside
47,000 other people have put their
money where their mouth is and taken
the plunge.
The company that inspired this crazy
commitment was Elio, an OEM that is
really shaking up both product and
service development, and nailing how to
market a vehicle that isn’t even in
production yet.
In this report we look at how interesting
new companies like Elio and much more
established OEMs like BMW are
innovating in the automotive space. I
hope it sparks some ideas and ﬁres up a
desire to change the face of the industry.
Kate Cooper, Chief Strategy Ofﬁcer,
Good Rebels

Contents
Introduction Page 06
The collaborative economy Page 16
CoLab Innovation Framework Page 21
Elio case study Page 36

Section one
Introduction
Good Rebels
Methodology
Executive summary

Good Rebels
We are Good Rebels.
Creating the future at the intersection of people, brands and technology.
We are on a mission to radically change the relationship companies have with their customers,
their employees and society. Helping our clients put people ﬁrst and become more competitive.
Powered by 130 Rebels working from 6 ofﬁces in the UK, Europe and Latin America; our work
currently spans over 60 clients across 9 countries.
goodrebels.com

Methodology
DEFINITIONS
For the purpose of this research we focus on Millennials aged 19-34
years-old in the UK. Some charts in this report include different age
groupings, where the data is from external sources e.g. National
Travel Survey and we have been unable to obtain data in different
formats. All charts are clearly labelled and sourced.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
We used a combination of quantitative and qualitative research
approaches to create this report with a total sample size of 33,521.
1.  Audience profiling through GlobalWebIndex survey data from a
representative sample of UK internet users.
2.  Deep dive research panel of UK Millennials
3.  Reevoo Car Buyers Panel survey
4.  Analysis of publically available data on driving trends in the UK
URBAN / RURAL PARTICIPANTS
Within the Millennial segment, we included viewpoints from
both urban, suburban and rural participants. Each research
approach used a representative sample of Millennials across
these three categories, with emphasis placed on urban and
suburban over rural to reflect dwelling trends amongst UK
Millennials in real life.
As expected there were differences in current transport
habits, with more rural and suburban Millennials owning cars
and relying less heavily on public transport or services like
Uber and City Car Club.
However attitudes towards the future of mobility and
technology innovations were less defined between urban and
rural. The low availability of certain services in rural areas
now does not mean there isn’t demand for the future.
Further detail on methodology is provided in the full report.

Executive summary
INNOVATION IS KING
So ﬁrst to answer the BIG question. As the next
generation of car buyers, will Millennials actually
buy cars?
In short YES, but not as we know it.
The Spotify and Netﬂix generation is as
comfortable sharing and subscribing to their
driving options as they are to their entertainment.
Smart players will place equal emphasis on
monetising services as they will innovating their
product range.
And it’s this that is important for both traditional
OEMs and new entrants to understand. It’s these
nascent trends we’re seeing in the Millennial
generation that tell us where the automotive and
mobility sector is headed.
One thing is clear: innovation is king. If the trends
seen in this report become reality, a business based
purely on production and volume sales will fail.
Traditional OEMs must become service-based
businesses to thrive.
Our goal in openly publishing both this and
upcoming research projects is to accelerate
innovation and change in the automotive industry.

Executive summary
CAN’T DRIVE, WON’T DRIVE
Many of the Millennials in our study that do hold a
full driving licence choose not to own a car and
rarely drive. There are a number of reasons for this
but primarily it is because they simply don’t need
to.
Millennials in the city are less dependent on driving
because there are more alternatives. They ask
people to give them lifts, they have taxi apps on
their phones and Google Maps in their pockets to
help get around on foot or public transport.
Learning to drive and owning a car is less of a rite
of passage for many Millennials.
There are other things ﬁghting for their money and
time, and other priorities in their lives.
Committing to car ownership is a burden for many
Millennials, who favour ﬁnancial freedom over
driving freedom. They aren’t comfortable putting
themselves in debt in order to own a car. Of those
that do own cars, many wouldn't change their
lifestyles to own a more expensive or newer model.

“Whilst having at car as a young person can be
seen as cool and even 'grown up' most young
people get by without and with the abundance
of new luxury goods available for them to wish
for cars are taking a back seat as unaffordable
luxuries compared to the latest computers,
phones and tablets.”
Emily, 19

Executive summary
ACCESS OVER OWNERSHIP
With the rise of car sharing options available to
Millennials living in the city, ownership is not the
only way to drive. For both ﬁnancial, practical and
environmental reasons (in that order), Millennials
are choosing to experiment with shared ownership
or short-term rental clubs.
Car ownership is becoming less of an aspiration
and less of a norm for Millennials, who are much
more acclimatised to subscription services and
access over ownership. The Spotify and Netﬂix
generation is as comfortable sharing and
subscribing to their driving options as they are to
their entertainment.
Owning the coolest car on the block is an
aspiration for some Millennials, but this aspiration
is becoming diluted by newer goals in life. Owning
the newest iPhone, starting a business, going
travelling and moving to the city are examples of
goals that take priority over car ownership for
today’s Millennials.
The idea of car ownership is not lost - many
Millennials talk about owning a car in the future -
but there are many other options for mobility
today, which means car ownership can be put off
for now.

“I think younger generations value experience
rather than ownership. Look at Snapchat -
they value the moment that day, rather than
having a history (such as history/posts/photos
on their Facebook wall). In my opinion they
like to experience and share the moments
rather than to own things.”
Ayako, 25

Executive summary
READY FOR DISRUPTION
Throughout the research, we found that
Millennials recognised the need for change and
disruption in the auto industry. They hold a belief
that traditional and long standing brands will have
to innovate and disrupt themselves in order to
survive in a market that is changing rapidly.
When we asked Millennials which brands they
thought would be leading the automotive industry
in 10 years’ time, brands that stood out were: Uber,
Tesla, Google, BMW, Apple and Toyota. In the same
task we asked Millennials to select the companies
they considered to be the most innovative. The
results were almost exactly the same. It is clear
that a perception of innovation for Millennials
equals long-term success.
Automotives: are you up to the challenge?

“Travel will be more collaborative, more
shared. I think the focus will be less on
full ownership…younger generations
are less bothered about owning stuff”
Nicole, 34.

Section two
The collaborative economy
A transformative shift
Consumption and exchange

A TRANSFORMATIVE SHIFT
It’s important to understand that the trends we saw
in our report were not unexpected and have
happened as part of a much wider trend called the
collaborative economy.
More than half of the western world has woken up to
a new way of getting the products and services they
need.
The collaborative economy, also known as the sharing
economy is the biggest shift in the business landscape
since the advent of the Internet itself. And just like the
Internet, it’s changing the rules for how we market,
sell and innovate.
To compete in this growing economy, established
corporations must develop new strategies.
In this new economic reality, the world’s largest
hospitality brand owns not a single room or hotel. The
world’s largest car service owns not a single vehicle.
And one of the world’s largest retailer is driven by
people buying and selling preowned goods.
These companies — Airbnb, Uber and eBay — are just
three players in a much larger shift that is
transforming our lives, our economy and the way we
do business.

CONSUMPTION AND EXCHANGE
The collaborative economy is an economic movement
where common technologies enable people to get the
goods and services they need from each other, peer
to peer, instead of buying from established
corporations.
This new form of consumption and exchange is not
only here to stay: it’s raising customers’ expectations
for all businesses.
This process of disruption isn’t new. A decade ago, we
saw how physical CDs gave way to illegal MP3
sharing websites, which eventually became the
dominant marketplace known as iTunes.
In recent years, we see that ownership of digital
media is giving way to streaming services and on-
demand media via membership and subscription
business models.
Efﬁciency
I need
Trust
You have

So does that mean that the big fish
are going to end up eaten by the
might of the heavily funded and
nimble minnows?
Perhaps. And almost certainly for
those unable to adapt.
But at Good Rebels, we really believe
smart traditional OEMs can find your
own opportunities to offer on-
demand products and services,
create peer-to-peer marketplaces
and enable platforms that bring your
customers closer to your brand.
That you can also find ways to make
your existing products and services
more appealing to customers who
would otherwise shift to sharing, and
identify opportunities to partner
with sharing services to offer greater
value to your customers.

Section three
Co-Lab Innovation Framework
Access over ownership
Exchange, share and trade
Secure, easy and fast

INNOVATION PROGRAMME
•  Consumer
•  Market
•  Product
•  Prototype
•  Pilot
•  Evolve
•  Brand
•  Launch
•  Marketing
•  Business model
•  Education
•  Inspiration
GARNER
DEEP
INSIGHTS
BUILD
INNOVATION
CAPABILITIES
DEVELOP
PRODUCT
OR SERVICE
CRAFT
CONSUMER
EXPERIENCE
INNOVATION STRATEGY

AREAS RIPE FOR DISRUPTION
So first of all, we know that there are clear areas
that are ripe for disruption. And this is your first
port of call when thinking about innovation within
your business:
COMPLEX EXPERIENCES
Where do consumers have very complex
experiences? On your website, when visiting a
dealer? When trying to configure a new car? When
actually trying to purchase?
BROKEN TRUST
Where has trust been broken? The recent VW
scandal provides a ripe feeding ground for
disruption and innovation. How can you play on
your trust credentials?
REDUNDANT INTERMEDIARIES
Where are there redundant intermediaries that
complicate the consumer experience and make
prospects and customers jump over unnecessary
hurdles. The dealership experience is ripe for
radical disruption or obliteration.
LIMITED ACCESS
Where is there limited access? For example how
can a premium brand create a product or service
that’s accessible for all?

THREE PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS
1. How can you create models that facilitate access
over ownership?
2. How can you enable people to exchange, share
and trade as directly as possible?
3. How can you remove friction from the system to
make it secure, easy & fast?

ACCESS OVER OWNERSHIP
The findings of our Millennials research shows
clearly that Millennials, as the next generation of
car buyers value access much more highly than
ownership. We’ve seen that car ownership is
becoming less of an aspiration and less of a norm
for Millennials, who are much more acclimatised to
subscription services.
Owning the coolest car on the block is an
aspiration for some Millennials, but this aspiration
is becoming diluted by newer goals in life. Owning
the newest iPhone, starting a business, going
travelling, moving to the city are all examples of
goals that are taking priority over car ownership
for today’s Millennials.
So the question you should be asking yourself is
how can you create models that facilitate access
over ownership? This is about shared access. You
need to reimagine the ways customers can access
the benefits of your product or service without
having to own it outright. And how do you
profitably monetise that?

MOVER
Mover is Ireland's new peer-to-peer car hire
service. They launch nationwide in early 2016
and are currently offering free enrolment to
car owners in both Limerick and Dublin to help
drive early scale. Their pitch is “enrol your car
with us now and ﬁnd out how you can earn
money by hiring it out to other Mover pre-
vetted renters.”

BMW DRIVENOW
DriveNow is a joint venture between BMW and Sixt that
provides carsharing services in several cities in Europe and North
America.
Instead of dealing with insurance, parking and maintenance,
customers can rent a 1-series electric vehicle at a designated lot
in urban areas, and drive the car to another location, then
promptly leave the vehicle for another person to access.
First-party apps for mobile devices allow users to locate and
reserve vehicles. When reserving a car online, the customers are
able to see the car's fuel gauge (gasoline-powered cars) or the
battery's state of charge (electric-powered cars), so if the
customer wants to go for an extended drive, they can ﬁnd the
right car for that trip.
As of November 2014, DriveNow operates over 3,780 vehicles,
which six countries worldwide and over 330,000 customers.

EXCHANGE, SHARE AND TRADE
So on to our next question, and one that is a lot
more challenging for the traditional OEMs to
imagine.
How can you enable people to exchange, share and
trade as directly as possible?
The obvious ﬁrst thing that comes to mind is the
role of dealerships in the customer experience.
We’re going to be covering that at length in our
ﬁnal report of the series when we look at car
buying, retail and aftersales innovation.
So setting dealerships aside until 14 December the
question is how can you reinvent ways to enable
people to connect directly with who or what they
need?

BLA BLA CAR
BlaBlaCar is a trusted community marketplace
that connects drivers with empty seats to
passengers looking for a ride. Over 10 million
people use BlaBlaCar every quarter creating an
entirely new, people powered, transport
network.
With a dedicated customer service, a state of
the art web and mobile platform, and a fast-
growing community of users, BlaBlaCar is
making travel social, money-saving and more
efﬁcient for millions of members.
The numbers are astonishing:
•  20 million members
•  19 countries
•  10 million travellers per quarter
•  Over 2 million trips available in the future at
any given time
•  Over 3 billion miles shared
•  An estimated £216 million saved by our
drivers every year
•  An estimated 1,000,000 tons of CO2 saved
•  Average car occupancy 2.8 people (vs 1.6
average)
What learnings can you take from BlaBlaCar for
your business?

JUSTPARK
JustPark is an online platform that enables private individuals
and companies hire out vacant parking spaces by the hour or day,
setting the rental fees themselves.
JustPark levies a service charge of between 6% and 40% of the
total rent, depending on location and size. In return, it handles all
dealings with the "tenant" and offers a money-back guarantee if
the reserved parking space turns out to be occupied.
250,000 customers already use the online search function, which
covers around 60,000 parking spaces at the present time.
Plans exist for further rapid internationalisation in collaboration
with German auto maker BMW, which signed up as one of the
company's investors in 2011. End-to-end mobility management
will be available in the future, with BMW offering customers of its
DriveNow car-sharing operation vehicles by the minute or hour
and a parking space near their destination.
How can your business partner with a start-up to develop
proﬁtable services like BMW have?

SECURE, EASY AND FAST
And ﬁnally our last provocation:
How can you remove friction from the system to
make it secure, easy and fast?
Traditional automotive remains complex,
cumbersome and a painful buying experience. Our
upcoming research project explores the extent to
which a disenfranchised group is alienated by the
current system. This is a group of decision makers
with massive buying power that is currently
underserved by the current system. Who is this
untapped potential? Women!
In this upcoming open research project, we get
under the skin of the passion and pain points of
four different groups of female consumer:
Mums, Millennials, Empty nesters, Professionals.
Insight gathered from this extensive research
project will be used by the automotive sector to
remove friction and make the service they receive
secure, easy and fast.
But back to the question at hand - simplicity is key:
How can you reﬁne products and services to their
simplest and most transparent form?

“Owning a car used to be a symbol of
freedom. Whilst it still is, it has deﬁnitely
also become a heavyweight ﬁnancial
burden.”
Melissa, 27

FORD CREDIT
Ford has developed an interesting approach to
finance that helps to overcome the friction caused
by the cost of ownership.
The car giant offers a creative financing program to
encourage new buyers to rent their new Ford car
to peers on Getaround, a P2P online marketplace.
This significantly reduces the cost of ownership.
Let’s find out more…PLAY VIDEO
Another example of an OEM partnering to benefit
from the opportunity of start-up innovation.

Product innovation: saving money, saving lives and disrupting an entire industry
INSURE THE BOX
Insure The Box was created by insurance
stalwart Michael Brockman to solve a
problem being faced by the insurance
industry.
At a time when insurance premiums
regularly hit the £4,000 mark for newly
qualified young drivers, Michael and his
team set out to reduce these cost
prohibitive premiums whilst making the
roads safer for young people and saving
lives.
Telematics represented that solution, a
black box installed into your car that is
connected via the mobile network to an
online portal tracking your driving
behaviour. The portal suggests ways to
drive more safely and actively rewards safer
driving with lower premiums.
The behavioural change benefits of the
online portal are proven to deliver an
average 35% reduction in risk in the first 11
months of driving with a black box.
In addition, Insure The Box has an auto alert
system in place that has been finely tuned
over the last five years so that the black box
can detect the severity of a collision and
where appropriate, activate emergency
services. Insure The Box deploys the
emergency services around 20 times a
month to crash sites.
Insure The Box represents everything the
automotive and mobility market needs to
get right to engage Millennials. Solving a
real problem using technology, establishing
a highly personalised relationship with the
customer, underpinned by an authentic and
meaningful mission to save money and save
lives.

"The new frontier of marketing will be service,
not sales. Or, in the parlance of CRM, retention
rather than acquisition. Additionally, as business
becomes more subscription-based, service
becomes dramatically linked to continuing
revenue. This is a huge greenﬁeld that will grow
as more, and better, intelligence starts to ﬂow
back and forth between customers and
companies.”
Doc Searls,
Harvard Business Review, November 2015

Section four
Elio case study
The product
The proposition
The pricing model
The ﬁnance package

Elio case study
THE PRODUCT
SO WHAT HAS ELIO GOT SO RIGHT?
1.  It’s American made
2.  Achieves an incredible 84 MPG
3.  It’s engineered to deliver the highest safety standards
4.  All for an unheard of base price of $6,800
5.  AND they’re using blue chip suppliers which means
servicing is very inexpensive

Millennials in the future: driverless vehicles
THE PROPOSITION
“In a nutshell, Elio is a stand alone solution for
today’s generation of drivers.
Petrol prices are constantly spiking. Cars
themselves cost more than houses did a few short
years ago. And in case you haven’t noticed, the
world and personal space along with it is
shrinking.
We simply need to evolve to more efﬁcient and
practical forms of transportation. We need a new
way to get around.”
Elio proposition
A proposition based on an authentic vision for the
future of mobility. One which doesn’t have it’s head
in the sand but sought to identify and solve real
people’s mobility challenges and needs.
But more than this, Elio claims that the positive
impact of the brand ripples well beyond personal
owner beneﬁts. It will generate thousands of jobs
while setting a whole new standard for
environmental friendliness.
Elio is starting a mobility movement, not just selling
a car.
#AlterTheCourse

Elio case study
THE PRICING MODEL
The pricing model is ingenious – bare in mind that
the car isn’t even in production yet. There are two
levels of deposit:
1.  I Want In
2.  I’m All In
The ‘I Want In’ option is refundable and the ‘I’m All
In’ option is non-refundable. You can put a deposit
of anywhere from $100 up to $1000.
What’s really interesting is that your commitment
level dictates your place in the queue. People who
are ‘All In’ and put down a non-refundable deposit
of $1000 are at the front of the queue and get the
ﬁrst models off the production line.
The non-refundable lower deposit amounts are
next in the queue and then come those who opted
for a refundable deposit. Last in the queue are
those who put down a refundable deposit of $100.

Elio case study
THE PRICING MODEL
And last but not least, Elio have developed a really
interesting way of ﬁnancing the purchase which
again is a further expression of the vision of the
brand.
How can a ﬁnance product be an expressing of a
vision? Here’s how:
My current car gives me 25 miles to the gallon and
let’s say for easy maths the Elio gets 75 miles to the
gallon (target is 84). So theoretically just my fuels
costs are going to be three times less compared to
my current vehicle.
They are launching an Elio credit card and the deal
is you buy all your petrol with it. And what will
happen is let’s say you spend $50 on petrol what it
will do is charge you $150 on your credit card i.e.
what you would have paid to travel the same
distance in your previous car. But that 2/3 will go
towards paying off your Elio.
Your fuel savings pay for the vehicle.

Elio case study
WHAT DOES IT TAKE?
How can you make the product, brand and overall
car buying and ownership experience so
compelling that you can deliver $290 million in
pre-orders without one vehicle on the road?
Elio are providing services that align with the
brand promise, they are providing experiences that
are all encompassing and they are selling cars that
haven’t yet been built because of it.
It’s this kind of innovation that the car buyers of
the future are looking for. A complete reimagining
of the mobility experience:
•  Access over ownership
•  Being part of a community, a movement
•  An experience so compelling that ownership
suddenly becomes an option again.

Automotive fails women
There is a gap between the automotive industry’s comprehension of
women and the reality. Women don't show their true experiences in
traditional focus groups and via commonplace research methods. As a
result, marketers and product developers are failing to deliver
products,  communications and experiences that truly resonate with
women. And this is effecting the bottom line.
In this ground-breaking research project, we get under the skin of the
passion and pain points of four different groups of female consumer:
1.          Mums
2.          Millennials
3.          Empty nesters
4.          Professionals
Insight gathered from this extensive research project will be used by
the automotive sector to truly engage with woman in a meaningful
way and develop innovative products and solutions that solve their
problems and meet their needs.
Read the full report:
https://www.goodrebels.com/meet-mad-maxine/

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
•  Market entry and demand studies
•  Product innovation
•  Product testing
•  Crowdsourcing product ideas
•  Trend analysis
CONSUMER INTELLIGENCE
•  Target market analysis
•  Audience proﬁling
•  Conversation analysis (social media)
COMPETITOR INTELLIGENCE
•  Industry analysis
•  Competitor benchmarking
•  Gap analysis
MARKETING INTELLIGENCE
•  Campaign development
•  Creative testing
•  Campaign performance &
measurement
•  Attribution modelling
Do you really understand
your audience?
Good Rebels provides in depth and human research using Hark, our global
insights community. Made up of over 5,000 active participants who can be
segmented demographically or psychographically.

Dude, where’s my car?
Product & Marketing
Innovation Deep Dive
Good Rebels 2015
goodrebels.com
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy
of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Dude where's my car. Product & Marketing Innovation Deep Dive

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