Tue, November 6, 2001

This morning, I was followed in traffic by a guy in a Subaru station wagon with a fairly stupid haircut and a paper cup of coffee. He seemed a little impatient, but maybe I was projecting. Anyway, it got me thinking: what happened to Subaru? I hardly ever see them any more, and I can remember a time when lots of people had them and my mom even kind of wanted to get one of the Paul "Crocodile Dundee" Hogan-endorsed Outback models. This morning was the first Subaru I've seen in weeks.

I'm not saying that Subarus are the solutions to all of our problems (although Temerlin McClain could use that slogan – couldn't hurt!), simply that trends are strikingly quick to change. Polaroid just recently filed for bankruptcy. There's a company you thought would be around. Are teenagers buying Justin Timberlake body pillows instead of JoyCams? Okay, that's Polaroid's bad. You don't stake your company on the fickle will of the adolescent dollar. Their discretionary income may be ballooning, but when it comes to trends, they tend to be the flightiest. Still, the problem isn't teenagers; it's that the rest of the country is adopting the same fad mentality.

Look at sport utility vehicles. This should be a niche market at best. How many companies make step-vans? (Seriously, I'm asking.) I don't know the answer, but I can tell you that it is not "all of them." Same with pickups, for that matter. Ford, Chevy, GM, Nissan, a few others. You want a pickup truck, you go to them. But sport utility vehicles, despite a lack of true "utility," have exploded (no pun intended, Jacques Nasser!) to the point where even Buick (and, yes, Subaru) is offering one. Why?? The need to fit in has eclipsed concerns like fuel efficiency or usefulness. Unstable gas prices, reduced driving visibility, and increased pollution are only a few of the consequences.

What worries me most is the response in the marketplace. Two bad things are happening. In this age of both conglomeration and (dare I utter it) recession, businesses are feeling compelled to homogenize their offerings. Our choices are limited to the most popular, which leaves precious little time or money for new or unproven ideas. And, as consumers, any effort to support these "underdog" offerings comes as quite a risky commitment. Nobody wants to repeat the experience of the unlucky bastards who bought all their favorite movie hits on BetaMax.

Recently, I purchased a TiVo. (I have reason to believe it reads my email, so let me stress that I absolutely love my TiVo.) However, ReplayTV's unit had some functionalities and interface features that I would have preferred. In the end, my decision to go with TiVo was motivated by the fact that they dominate the Personal Video Recorder market, and if I purchased a ReplayTV unit, there was a very real chance that the company wouldn't be around to support the unit and offer new software updates in the future.

The point is: with big companies growing larger and more fiscally conservative, the only people taking chances on unproven ideas are companies too small to survive a misstep. I hate to admit it, but Daimler-Chrysler at least has the right idea. They're big enough to be around even if something as ridiculous as the PT Cruiser doesn't hit big, so they're giving it a try. The good news is (eyesore or not) it's succeeding. Which proves that there are consumers out there willing to support the envelope pushers. It's what Miramax once meant to filmmaking: a stable proving ground on which the fringe element can experiment.

The good news is that they're not entirely alone. Echo, Prius, Focus. A few options are exploring the possibility that "samer" is not necessarily better. It doesn't mean that you won't be seeing Daewoo and Lamborghini SUVs on the streets, but it's a glimmer of hope. And I'm not the expert. And the automotive industry isn't the only culprit. I guess it just popped into my head because of that guy in the Subaru.

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