While other car companies chase Generation Xers and younger buyers, Lincoln Mercury would be happy just to see more Baby Boomers in its showrooms.
With most of its owners at or near retirement age, Lincoln Mercury views Baby Boomers in their 40s and 50s as a youth movement.
“For us, Boomers are wonderful,” said marketing manager Jim Rogers. “We’ve been selling to people who were born in the ’20s.”
Buyers of the Town Car, Lincoln’s largest, most-expensive sedan, average 68 years old. The average age for the full-size Mercury Grand Marquis also is 68, and the mid-size Mercury Sable average is 63, despite its contemporary styling.
“Both brands have an old, aging customer base that until recently has not been replenished much,” Rogers said. “With the Town Car, it is largely the same people buying it the last 10 years. Ten years ago, they were 58. Now they’re 68.
“The challenge is to bring in people who are not our current owner base. It is fundamentally critical to revitalize that customer base.”
Lincoln Mercury has won younger buyers with the Lincoln Navigator, a wildly successful full-size luxury sport-utility, and the Mercury Cougar coupe. Neither fits the Lincoln Mercury image for large, stodgy cars.
Buyers of Navigator, the first truck to wear the Lincoln badge, average 46, and more than half had not set foot in a Lincoln Mercury dealership or considered either brand.
The two-door Cougar, redesigned last year for a much sportier appearance than its predecessors, also has attracted new customers, including a sizable number in their 20s and 30s. Like the Navigator, more than half of Cougar buyers had never been to a Lincoln Mercury dealership. (Cougar sales have more than doubled this year to 43,323 through August, outpacing the Mercury Mystique sedan by more than 14,000. Navigator sales have dropped 14 percent, to 23,871 units, in the period after posting a 63 percent gain, to 43,859, a year learlier.
“It shows that with the right product, you can do it,” Rogers said of the goal to draw new buyers.
“Product is king. The way you change your image is by changing the product and then using advertising to reinforce the change.
“The Lincoln brand name is very strong among all age groups, even Baby Boomers. But Boomers say `you just don’t make anything that is relevant to us.’ We intend to offer vehicles that are relevant in the future.”
Rogers would not talk specifics about new models, but Lincoln has indicated that in 2001 it will add the Blackwood, a combination SUV and pickup truck. It and Mercury also may add car-based SUVs that year.
The newest Lincoln aimed at younger buyers is the 2000 LS, a rear-wheel-drive luxury sedan that debuted this summer starting at $31,450. The LS is built from the same platform (or basic architecture) as the Jaguar S-Type but has different styling.
Lincoln touts the LS as a “driver’s car” and aims the LS at Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus and other luxury imports, rather than traditional rival Cadillac. The LS comes in a choice of V-6 and V-8 engines, and it is the first Lincoln available with a manual transmission since 1952.
Lincolns traditionally have been described with nautical terms such as “boat” and “barge,” but Rogers says the LS “is no boat.”
“Having the manual transmission available signals it is a driver’s car,” Rogers said, and that is key to attracting import fans in their 30s, 40s and 50s.
“It is a different kind of car than Lincoln has ever offered before and very definitely a car that appeals to a new buyer for us.”
Auto industry analysts aren’t sure the LS will be a home run for Lincoln the way the Navigator was.
“The LS is a great driving car, and the styling is attractive,” said Jim Hall, vice president of auto industry analysis for Auto Pacific. “But it is absolutely invisible in traffic. It really needs more visual presence, styling that hits you between the eyes and says, `Buy me.’ “
Hall says the competitive pricing should attract new buyers to the brand, but he warns that unless Lincoln develops more models like the LS, “They may never own another Lincoln after that.”
Wes Brown, an analyst with Nextrend, an industry forecasting firm, also sees the LS getting nibbles from import owners, but Lincoln’s image of building conservative cars for old people makes it a hard sell.
“It’s going to be difficult to get people into the showrooms, and then when they get there there’s also a Town Car and a Continental on the floor,” Brown said. “The Navigator is a product concept so strong it transcends the negativity of the brand. The LS is in one of the most competitive market segments and isn’t going to do that.”
Brown expects the LS to lure 50- to 55-year-old buyers, which would be “a tremendous improvement over what they have now.”
Even with the quest for younger buyers, Rogers says Lincoln Mercury intends to sell traditional luxury cars such as the Town Car “as long as anyone wants to buy it and it’s economical for us to make it.”
Auto Pacific’s Hall says catering to two audiences with one brand won’t help Lincoln Mercury find the Fountain of Youth. He cites as example the trimmer, more stylish Town Car that Lincoln introduced last year, which hasn’t attracted younger buyers.
“The Town Car was a compromise, and you don’t draw anybody new with a compromise. Either you have to commit to something new or not commit,” Hall said.
Brown also sees danger in going after younger buyers while clinging to older customers.
“If you try to attract buyers in the mid-40s with a car like the LS, how do you satisfy the buyer who is 70?” he asks.
Rogers counters that an older person will buy a younger person’s car if it has the right design and features.
“If we do that correctly, we’ll continue to sell to older people,” he said.
