Electrified families complicate marketing

Imagine a family with triplets who all have the same name but different dietary preferences. And they have to give lunch instructions to the new baby sitter. Diego likes his grilled cheese well-done. Diego will only eat a Reuben.

Oh, and Diego? He's vegan.

That's something like the marketing challenge for automakers fielding a family of vehicles under a single nameplate, each with its own kind of electrified powertrain.

Simply put, it takes a village.

Hyundai has a team of nearly two dozen road warriors tasked with prepping dealerships through in-store training sessions to explain its electrified vehicles to consumers. Each trainer is assigned 25 to 40 dealerships.

The brand's electrified Ioniq lineup presents a challenge with a menu that boasts hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full- electric options.

Building awareness and interest in one electrified model is hard enough. General Motors learned that with the now-discontinued Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid, an engineering wonder that launched in 2010 but never enjoyed much commercial success. Extending that knowledge-building exercise to a full line of slightly different vehicles can be even trickier.

Honda, Kia and Hyundai all have vehicle families with a range of electrified variants. The Kia Niro crossover, for example, is offered as a hybrid, plug-in hybrid and full EV. Same with Hyundai's Ioniq line. Honda's Clarity series is composed of a battery-electric model, a plug-in hybrid and a hydrogen-powered entry. (All three brands also have other nameplates with one or more electrified variants.)

The complexity is sorted out on the marketing side at the automaker level and filters down to the training of dealership salespeople.

Hyundai's training staff briefs salespeople on the proper questions to ask prospects. Popping the right questions during the introductory phase helps salespeople understand any misconceptions a shopper might have about electrified vehicles before they go about dispelling them. It also enables them to determine which eco-friendly rides are best for certain buyers, said Jared Dowdy, Hyundai Motor America's senior manager of national sales training.

Salespeople, who have varying levels of understanding themselves because of constant turnover at dealerships, sometimes ask about the differences among the three Ioniq models during the training sessions, just as a customer would.

Understanding the technology and features of electrified vehicles isn't the hard part. It's "being able to have a conversation and being a consultant to the customer," Dowdy says.

Consumers may understand the basics of a hybrid or even an electric vehicle, but the plug-in hybrid tends to throw them for a loop.

"Of the three, the most misconstrued is the plug- in," Dowdy said. "People don't understand. 'Is it electric? Is it gas? How do those two work together? What's the range? What is it really doing for me?' That's the most difficult.

"It's easy to say, 'Hey, this is how a hybrid engine works. Electric is all-electric. This is how that works.' But the combination of the two makes it more difficult."

Hyundai's training has foundational elements that dealers across the country are exposed to, but there are regional differences in some cases. Those in northern areas that deal with harsh winters, Dowdy said, have to learn to talk about the range differences in colder environments.

Depending on the size of a dealership, Hyundai's trainers may stick around for a few hours, or as long as two days.

Hyundai plans to launch a campaign this year centered on its collection of alternative-fuel models: the Sonata sedan, which has a hybrid and plug-in hybrid; the Ioniq line of hatchbacks; the Kona Electric small crossover; and the hydrogen-powered Nexo small crossover, the automaker's technological flagship.

Steve Kosowski, Kia Motors America's manager of long-range strategy and planning, said it can be difficult to keep the Niro models differentiated. But he said the brand "has developed strong dealer partnerships" to "help supplement our educational efforts on the local level."

Kosowski said many consumers still don't understand the differences among an EV, a plug-in hybrid and a conventional hybrid.

For some, he said, range anxiety continues to be a barrier, but he believes that's "more an issue of education and experience, considering the range of the Niro EV is 239 miles."

As questions keep coming, Kia has turned to bots to educate consumers about its Niro lineup. Bots are online chat programs that use artificial intelligence to process and answer a shopper's questions.

Kia was the first automaker to use a chat bot through Facebook's Messenger platform, with the NiroBot, which presented shoppers with photos and descriptions of the Niro and a chance to get their questions answered in real time.

The brand followed that with Kian, a shopping assistant that addresses consumers about Kia's full lineup.

Kia also has teamed with Amazon on a program to provide its plug-in vehicle customers with one-stop shopping solutions for a home charging station.

"Amazon will deliver the hardware direct to a customer's home, and the customer can request assistance that will help them install it, too. This takes the guesswork out of buying and installing the charging station," Kosowski said in emailed statement. "If Kia can educate consumers in an easy-to-understand and non-intimidating way, then we have the most important aspect of the sales proposition right."

Providing clarity

Honda has run education efforts around its Clarity line for several years.

The brand, which wants electrified models to account for two-thirds of its worldwide vehicle sales by 2030, launched a national ad campaign for the Clarity plug-in hybrid in April 2018 that sought to dispel consumer fears of getting stranded.

Honda went with the instructional angle because its focus groups in places such as New York and Los Angeles showed that some consumers still didn't understand how plug-in hybrids work.

Some participants showed angst about getting stuck in rural areas when the electric battery runs out, while others said they didn't want to be bound by charging stations.

With misconceptions such as these, Honda said its marketing had to clearly communicate what owning a plug-in hybrid entails.

The Clarity spot opened with a simple declaration: "The end of your battery charge isn't the end of the world." Then the ad makes it clear that it "runs on electric, but has gas if you need it."

It's an odd position for a brand with a loyal customer base.

"We need to educate consumers first on what plug-in technology is, and then sell them on Honda," Susie Rossick, American Honda Motor Co.'s assistant vice president of marketing when the plug-in campaign launched, said at the time. "Education is a primary goal here. To do that, we wanted to do a campaign that wasn't gimmicky. We had to do something straightforward."