Disclaimer: This isn’t meant to be a car review. This is an article on brand authenticity.
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Back in 2021, when Ford was promoting the Mustang Mach-E GT, its high-performance electric vehicle, the company found a way to appeal to potential buyers who somehow missed the sensory appeal of gasoline-powered cars. In a Ford-commissioned survey, one in five drivers responded that the smell of petrol was what they’d miss most in an electric vehicle. So, Ford responded by working with U.K.-based Olfiction to create a fragrance that would smell like petroleum. The result came in the form of a fragrance called “Mach-Eau.”
Upon reading the news, I had mixed feelings. One side of me applauded the car company for a smart marketing vehicle (no pun intended). Yet the other side of me thought, “Hmm… how authentic is it to make your product smell like something it’s not supposed to, by design?” And perhaps more importantly, I wondered, “Will this strategy work in the long term?”
More recent developments with EVs offered some food for thought.
Hyundai
In 2023, the Korean carmaker surprised car enthusiasts with its Ioniq 5 N, an EV that boasted fake engine noises and a system that mimicked the gear shifts of a gas-powered car. This was done using the superfluous feature of 10 interior and two exterior speakers to simulate the rumble of a gas engine and exhaust both inside and outside the vehicle. Everything was done to make the car sound and feel like something that it wasn’t: a car with an internal combustion engine and a manual gearbox. Apparently, the aim here was to evoke the emotions that gas cars used to stir. The nearly silent EV engine just didn’t offer the same thrill as the roar of internal-combustion engines.
Hyundai was not the only carmaker to be challenged with the issue of adding excitement to its EVs. Yet the response strategy from another car brand was different.
Lamborghini
If there was one car that really used to excite with its ferocious roar, it was the Lambo. Company founder Ferruccio Lamborghini said, “When I miss the sound and the fury, I take refuge in my garage and turn the key in the ignition of my Miura.”
Now, imagine what it would feel like for a new Lambo owner to hear nothing but the whisper-quiet EV engine instead.
And yet, it appears Lamborghini isn’t interested in fake sounds for its EVs. Lamborghini’s chief technical officer, Rouven Mohr, made that clear: “I am definitely not a fan of everything being artificial in terms of soundtrack. We definitely won’t do something like put 10 additional speakers into a car then play a fake V-10 sound.”
According to Mohr, whatever the electric Lambo might now lack in terms of sound it can compensate for by offering maneuvers that were not previously possible, redefining what is “cool.”
Authentic vs. artificial
I’m not in a position to put one approach above the other. In fact, Mohr gave due credit to Hyundai’s engineers, referring to the Ioniq 5 N as a “really well-done car.” However, the above examples serve a wider purpose: to question brand authenticity when gimmicks and artificial features are added to create a certain (false) impression.
According to Michael B. Beverland, marketing professor and the author of Building Brand Authenticity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), authenticity is perceptual. So it’s ultimately in the mind of the consumer, for instance, whether Jack Daniels was a gentleman.
Yet the Ioniq 5 N leaves nothing to the consumer’s imagination. In this case, the consumer appears to be a willing accomplice in self-deceit, accepting all the artificial features for the impression of a gas car. And that’s a sign of something more insidious: consumer readiness to be satisfied with inauthenticity.
In a 1980 New York Times article, historian and journalist Barbara W. Tuchman defined quality as “achieving... the highest standard as against being satisfied with the sloppy or fraudulent” (emphasis is mine). I couldn’t agree more: Quality connotes authenticity, and consumers who tolerate and even encourage inauthenticity become accomplices in a crime that’s just about as “victimless” as counterfeiting.
But that’s only my opinion. Please let me know what you think in the comments.
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