Emission impossible?

According to diffusion studies, interpersonal communication is more effective than mass media channels in shaping attitudes towards innovation. The question is: how do you unlock that word-of-mouth buzz? General Motors’ (GM) campaign to launch its first electric car – over 30 years ago – provides useful clues. The campaign didn’t lead to a clamour to buy electric vehicles, but it did provide important insights that help drive adoption of other innovations.

In the early 90s, state governments in California and Arizona introduced new rules requiring automobile manufacturers to produce ‘zero-emission’ electric cars. The directive mandated that, by 2003, 10% automobile sales must come from ‘ultra clean’ vehicles. GM invested $2 billion in this initiative. They developed a prototype called the ‘Impact’, a sleek, lightweight, electric vehicle with a range of 100 miles per charge.

GM launched a campaign to promote the ‘Impact’ across 18 cities in California and Arizona. Ads were placed in local newspapers inviting people to apply for a test drive. The response was overwhelming. Those selected, referred to as ‘mavens’, were ‘car nuts’ with deep knowledge of automobiles and reputations as opinion leaders.

The mavens were given a 30-minute test drive followed by a Q&A session with a GM engineer. After the session, they were debriefed by researchers, then given promotional materials to distribute among their friends. The materials included a photo of the Impact and 50 ‘baseball cards’ that outlined its spec. Each card included a unique ID and a phone number to register for a test drive. The campaign kickstarted a word-of-mouth diffusion process, stimulated by the mavens.

Feedback to researchers highlighted a need to change the vehicle’s name (later renamed EV-1), due to concerns raised about the car’s light and crash potential. However, other limitations flagged in the research – the restrictive driving range of 100 miles and poor state-wide infrastructure charging – would take longer to address.

“Interpersonal communication is more effective than mass media channels in shaping attitudes."

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In late 1997, the EV-1 was made available at select dealerships. Sales were modest, and within a year, the mandates from California and Arizona were postponed. Consumer interest in EVs dwindled until the introduction of hybrid models in 2000s.

Through this high-cost experiment, GM learned valuable lessons about leveraging interpersonal communication to market new products. These insights were later applied to marketing other GM innovations like on-board GPS, demonstrating the broader applicability of the insights gained this initiative.

Those learnings still translate today.