Powerful women are driving China’s luxury car industry

This article was written by Yiling Pan and was originally published in Jing Daily

The trend has driven a number of foreign prestige auto brands, such as Audi, Cadillac and Ferrari, to step up their efforts to market toward this consumer segment. Due to their varied cultural, social and economic backgrounds, Chinese women have very different buying habits than their Western counterparts. And some brands have responded creatively to these differences, developing marketing campaigns that appeal specifically to Chinese women.

Jing Daily caught up with Raul Rios, the senior director of strategy at Walton Isaacson, after his presentation at Luxury Daily’s “Women in Luxury” conference, in New York on September 26. In the following interview, Rios, who specialises in luxury automotive marketing, shared his insights into the consumption behaviours of Chinese women with respect to luxury cars and offers marketing advice to brands.

Jing Daily: How do Chinese women buy luxury cars differently from women in the West?

Raul Rios: Chinese women are a little bit different from American women, particularly when we look at wealth and affluence. In China, there is a higher percentage of women in leadership positions than there are in Western countries, which shifts our perception of who has the power to buy luxury goods.

Luxury is used as a way of signalling their social status, and they use it as a form of self-expression. But it is apparently still very male-dominated. So women are also looking for ways to emulate some of the attributes that men have – status, power, and success. Women want that for themselves. Chinese women, in particular, are looking for that. So we see that across the category, whether it is automotive, apparel and accessories, those are the predominant areas where Chinese women are seeking out those elements.

How do you successfully market to affluent Chinese women?