Black diamonds, white trash

Marketing people are strange types who, I suppose, have to justify their existence by continuously showing management just how clever they are. It always beats me, though, as to why, at car launches, they feel this huge urge to explain to the media just who their product is aimed at.

Of course, every presenter earnestly tells us that the buyer of their product is a young, dynamic, free-thinking, environmentally aware go-getter who likes to stand out from the crowd. I recently attended a launch where the speaker quite seriously told us that males who buy that car are the types who are likely to help their wives with the dishes in the evenings. Why do the marketing geeks need to share this drivel with us, the motoring media? Does nobody make a car for corrupt politicians who want to bed their secretaries, or for boring bank clerks who would dash off to their cardiologists if they ever felt a spurt of adrenaline coursing through their veins? Bah, humbug, I always say. Perhaps they feel it necessary to justify their huge budgets to management, but I call it smoke ‘n mirrors. I like exactly the same sort of cars I did 30 years ago – usually cheap ‘n cheeky models that don’t cost more than I earn in a year.

My feeling of mildly bored amusement flew out of the window at today’s launch, though, when the fledgling Suzuki Auto saw fit to proudly flash its aspirations to about 30 journalists near Hartbeespoort Dam. The slide that helpfully detailed their plan to us read as follows:

Why focus on the black diamonds?

The traditional market:
White market is declining
Reduced population
Reduced percentage of local market
Reduce (sic) opportunity
No longer the trend-setters

Black Diamonds
Increasing population
Increasing disposable income
Previously ignored by marketers
Trying to find its own identity
Will set the trends for the future

Oh, so that’s it then. You’ve had your day, honky, so go and screw yourself. You’re not on our radar anymore.

I spent most of my time driving to the lunch venue praising the new Suzuki Swift. It’s a great car that provides excellent value for money — perhaps the best in its class — and it represents a quality brand that has until now been sadly neglected in this country. Still, if I’m too old and too white to be considered worth courting in the marketplace, I’m certainly not going to spend one cent of my money on a Suzuki.