How can market research help Automotive Design companies remain competitive?

Desentra?ando el Dise?o Automotriz: Investigación y Tecnología En el complejo mundo del dise?o automotriz, la investigación de mercado guía hacia la innovación. Redes sociales como Instagram capturan la estética futura, mientras Twitter profundiza en tendencias y tecnologías. Instagram Live y Twitter Chats sumergen en la experiencia del cliente, construyendo autenticidad. Herramientas digitales como Google Analytics, SurveyMonkey, Tableau, Hootsuite, Google Data Studio, Hotjar y Zapier unifican datos para un dashboard visionario. Esta sinergia nos coloca en la vanguardia, anticipando y satisfaciendo las necesidades futuras de manera precisa y visionaria.

Empathy towards your customer is key for successful products, and only way to achieve it is by staying close to them, have an open mind and listen... Many western companies missed the opportunity to understand Chinese customers, thinking they would adapt to them, instead it's been the other way around and some companies are now struggling to keep up with Chinese OEMs.

From my experience working on global light trucks, such as Ford Ranger, it can be extremely challenging to serve such a wide variety of customers, that can go from agricultural users in emerging countries to cashed up middle class users in developed countries, where different regulations also play a key role in the huge complexity those vehicle lines end up having, which means higher costs and vehicle overall weight. On the other hand, focused products, such as the introduction of Ford Mustang in Australia, can have a shorter lifespan so you need to keep finding ways to keep sales up and customers engaged with your product line by constantly reinventing yourself and keeping up with new trends.

Traditionally, car designers have relied heavily on customer insights from marketing departments. However, the process of creating and gathering this data often remains a "black box". More so, this data is frequently detached from the tangible context of car design. Marketing teams often assess specific customer attitudes, conduct surveys, but the quality and relevance can be questionable. While focus groups and panels are often well-executed, they suffer from statistical insignificance and may inadvertently introduce bias, offering limited depth for true innovation. As standalone strategies, these methods often fall short, providing data but lacking the deeper insights necessary for genuine breakthroughs in design.

It is of vital importance to keep your finger on the pulse and measure the evolution of customer preferences. It will help you make better marketing and design decisions. A classic example is navigation. When introduced, not all car drivers were convinced. Marketing was used to emphasize the value of the concept itself. Later, built-in navigation became an expected feature of any car, meaning price and extra features became the differentiators. Now, people want to connect their mobile phones to the car's infotainment system instead of using built-in navigation. Being aware of this during the design phase is crucial as it prevents spending effort on features that customers perceive as less and less valuable.