Almost 80 percent of Mini owners in China are women, the highest level among any car brand, according to estimates from J.D. Power & Associates. BMW is reportedly worried about this and is trying to lure more male buyers, with recent actions including an all-Mini road trip to Tibet and the addition of a pool table in Mini’s Shanghai showroom.
“You don’t want to tip into being a girlie car. Not only do you alienate the men, you actually alienate a lot of women, because a lot of women won’t want to buy a feminine brand,” Sean Green, head of Mini’s China business, told Detroit News.
China is the fourth-largest market for Mini after the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, with Mini being a rival for Daimler AG’s Smart brand, the Fiat 500 and VW Beetle.
Mini deliveries have risen 18 percent in China in the first five months of the year, surpassing the 11 percent growth in the overall passenger-vehicle market. Despite the fact that the Mini hatch starts at 205,000 yuan ($33,000), the brand sold 11,440 vehicles in China through May, outselling both the Smart and Fiat 500.
So what is Mini doing to convince men to give the brand a chance? Well, the company is being “overtly masculine in some of the communication style,” according to Green. Examples include the introduction of the John Cooper Works high-performance version in China in June 2013 and a documentary about a convoy of Mini cars crossing China’s most rugged and remote terrain through Tibet to the foot of Mount Everest.
By Dan Mihalascu
PHOTO GALLERY
