Auto Care ON AIR

Gen Z's Evolving Relationship with Cars and Mobility

• Auto Care Association • Season 1 • Episode 46

Share episode

Two automotive industry experts with the same name – Mike Chung of MarketCast and Mike Chung of the AutoCare Association – explore the fascinating evolution of Gen Z's relationship with cars and mobility in a data-rich, candid conversation that challenges conventional automotive industry thinking.

The conversation dives deep into how the pandemic fundamentally altered the formative years of those now aged 18-26, creating a generation with dramatically different expectations about transportation, ownership, and mobility. Unlike previous generations who viewed cars as essential symbols of freedom, Gen Z navigates a world with unprecedented options – from rideshare apps to electric scooters – making traditional car ownership optional rather than mandatory.

Economic factors weigh heavily in this shift. We explore how supply chain disruptions, skyrocketing vehicle prices, and increased living costs have pushed car ownership down the priority list for many young consumers. Yet paradoxically, automotive content thrives in unexpected digital spaces. Gen Z consumers engage with car culture through novel channels, including watching live dealership negotiations on TikTok – content that previous generations would find mundane but that resonates deeply with digital natives.

The discussion provides valuable insights into evolving research methodologies. Traditional focus groups are giving way to online sessions where Gen Z participants feel more comfortable expressing authentic opinions. Social listening has become crucial for identifying micro-conversations that reveal emerging trends before they surface in formal research settings. For automotive brands targeting this demographic, success hinges on authenticity, distinction, and creating meaningful experiences rather than relying solely on traditional advertising approaches.

What emerges is a portrait of a generation that hasn't abandoned automotive enthusiasm but expresses it differently. For industry professionals, understanding these shifts isn't just academically interesting – it's essential for developing meaningful connections with the consumers who will shape automotive's future. 

Send us a text

To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.

To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast


Mike Chung:

Welcome to Auto Care ON AIR, a candid podcast for a curious industry. I'm Mike Chung, senior Director of Market Intelligence at the Auto Care Association, and this is Indicators, where we identify and explore data that will help you monitor and forecast industry performance. This includes global economic data, industry indicators and new data sources. Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Indicators Podcast. Really excited to have Mike Chung as my guest and you know me as Mike Chung the host, so you're getting two for the price of one today, so I'd like to introduce Mike Chung of MarketCast. So, mike, welcome to our program.

Mike Chung:

Thank you, I'm really happy to be here.

Mike Chung:

And Mike, tell us a little bit about yourself, the company you work at, the role that you play there, if you don't mind company you work at the role that you play there, if you don't mind.

Mike Chung:

Yeah, so, as you know, my name is Mike Chung. I'm a car enthusiast, to say the least. I've really been into cars since childhood I think, like a lot of people have been, and it's really kind of not only driven my career but it's really been a personal passion of mine. So I've always kind of been into cars, been visiting car shows, auto shows. I haven't really been into the most exotic cars necessarily, but I'm very practical in kind of my interests. So I think really, when you look at myself and my career, it's really fortunate to have that kind of overlap with my personal interests as well as my professional at myself and my career. It's really fortunate to have that kind of overlap with, you know, my personal interests as well as my professional. And so, professionally I've worked in auto for 20-ish some odd years in various roles across agency, working directly with the OEM and secondary companies related to automotive. So it's a real blessing to be able to kind of work in an industry that you love and I think that's really the the something that I feel very fortunate to be able to have to do.

Mike Chung:

In my current role I lead the automotive practice for a company called market cast. Market cast is a market research consultancy Um at at, so like we do a lot of custom as well as kind of really focused market marketing research with focus on the automotive category. So a lot of the brands that I work with are either at the OEM level or what we call auto adjacent. So being auto adjacent, you're talking about automotive suppliers, automotive kind of marketing providers, agencies, etc. And we're really here to help understand and define what the consumer behavior is translated to and how that manifests itself into actual automotive performance.

Mike Chung:

Fantastic, thanks for that overview. And you mentioned agencies, so are those advertising agencies then?

Mike Chung:

Yes, I mean, some of them consider themselves more traditional marketing agencies, but I think when you look at it from the outside again, it's an advertising agency. I think the definition of advertising has obviously changed over time as well. You know, when people think of traditional advertising you think of a TV commercial or even a digital ad, but now that's really expanded out to things like experiential, and experiential is as big a part of automotive as any other kind of medium or channel nowadays, because, as we'll kind of see, not only from some of the research we'll talk about is that experiences are that much more important for all generational cohorts, but specifically for some of the ones that we will talk about later.

Mike Chung:

That's really helpful and, of course, as you were talking, it made me think oh, of course there are creative agencies, there are digital agencies, there are a variety of types of agencies.

Mike Chung:

But what I think is really great is not only do we share the same name and some of the same interests and passions related to automotive, but we're also been swimming in data and consumer behavior for a good portion of our professional lives. So I want to just kind of take one of the topics you just highlighted and segue from there. You said experiential, and some of the research you shared with me was Gen Z automotive fandom and that user, that consumer experience. So I know that's a very broad base to jump off of and we can noodle on these topics for a little bit. But what have you and your colleagues been seeing with regard to the younger generations and how they are learning about cars, experiencing cars, what their preferences are? Because I think the data indicate driver's license adoption is a little bit lower with the younger generation than it has in the past. So why don't we start from there?

Mike Chung:

It's really interesting because I think when you talk about specific generational cohorts, right, they're also uniquely defined. When you look at what boomers kind of kind of set up for the country so far, what Gen X has kind of obviously brought to the table. I remember even talking not that long ago about what the effect of Gen Y would be on the automotive industry, and now we're at the point of time where we're talking about what Gen Z really brings and I feel like Gen Z is one of the most interesting kind of generational cohorts that we've ever seen, partly because a lot of their formative growth happened in the middle of the pandemic, right. So when you talk about what Gen Z is defined as it's loosely defined as anyone from around ages 18 to 26 currently. So you think about it like four to five years ago a lot of these people were in high school or just coming out of college or just entering the workforce and their conception of work, mobility, their expectations, they are all very different than, obviously, the generations that preceded them and so because of this common shared experience of like I didn't get a chance to go to school for, you know, three years, right, or my college experience was primarily remote based, a lot of them have not only a different set of expectations, but they just don't see the world the same way that a lot of us other cohorts do. And so with that again, it brings up a whole host of different, not only expectations, but different kind of perceptions of what X or Y should be.

Mike Chung:

And when you talk about automotive, it changes the lens almost completely. Right, it's extremely low We've seen it continuing to drop within generational cohorts. But the fact that there are options now that were never available for previous age groups, right. Like you know, I used to live in a very suburban area in Northern California where, outside the bus, if you didn't have a car, you had no sense of mobility or freedom. And when you talk about the, obviously the introduction of the internet, which obviously is huge, but also the fact that I could always go onto my mobile phone and dial up an Uber, even though it may cost a premium, the option is there. And so when you talk about selection options and you know availability of things this generation hasn't made, and the term, I think what we'll definitely talk about as well, as I mean we all know that we're all relatively digital native, but gen z is the truly first digitally focused, digitally centric, um generation that we've ever seen right.

Mike Chung:

They literally grew up with internet right, yeah, and as you were talking sorry to interrupt you no, yeah, 18 to 26 year old. There's my son just started his first year of college. So eighth grade is when pandemic happened. And as you were talking, it made me think, yeah, even things like riding the school bus, or perhaps you're having family drop you off or you're not carpooling as much to that sports game or extracurricular activity, and if you are, you're wearing a mask. So in terms of that experience, oh my gosh, yeah, it just opens up so many things that we, as older than Gen Z, we look back and say, wow, my experience was definitely different. And then the other thing I thought of as you were talking was, like you said more options and you mentioned Uber, and there's, there are electric scooters, there are the electric, the one I don't even know what they're called, but it's got the one wheel, it's like a big, the mono wheel their electric skateboards. So, yeah, just just a lot of different options to your point.

Mike Chung:

So yeah, and I think it's interesting because the pandemic, I mean it was such a seminal event, like for a lot of reasons, and it changes so many people, not only from a physical manifestation, obviously, of being sheltered in place, but this sense of general anxiety that it brought to a lot of people, and so that anxiety manifests itself in so many things, like when we talk about a concern about affordability, and that that's another major barrier for not only automotive, for a lot of things like home ownership that we've talked about, like everyone's talking about at this point.

Mike Chung:

It's this like sense that I no longer may have the availability or ability to either, you know, participate in new car ownership. The way that, again, previous generations have and again you remember this as well as anyone else is that there were things that were just priced out of reach during the pandemic and post pandemic, car cars being one of them. But there are certain things with supply chain, you know issues. It just didn't make sense. So you saw not only new car prices skyrocket, but you saw used car prices skyrocket and the idea of like, oh, I'm 16, I'm going to get my driver's license and buy a cheap used car. We're not even available to some of these individuals and it really kind of affects them long term.

Mike Chung:

Yeah, and I was thinking about that from the standpoint of the last few years of the economy. We've seen high inflation, we have seen increased costs with vehicle insurance and even though unemployment is relatively low, keeping up, if you will, is no small thing and to that practical-minded or somewhere along those lines. I was also thinking about gig economy the stable, I guess, the steady paycheck is. There's more opportunity for gig work, for example. So I can see these as contributing to that. Perhaps lower vehicle ownership for a lot of groups, but particularly Gen Z. Is that what you've been seeing as well, Mike? Definitely.

Mike Chung:

And it's this preponderance of options that really changes the focal point for a lot of these people, particularly within this generational cohort.

Mike Chung:

And I think, when you talk about the limitless, not only possibilities, but the idea that those possibilities exist, is something that we've really not seen from you know, from a certain group, and so the idea is that I don't have to have a traditional career path, like you said right, like I can actually be not only sustained by doing like small things here and there, but I can actually thrive in some of those types of work. So it's really interesting to see the ideas that I think we grew up. We had a certain path you needed a car to be mobile. The mobility then allowed you to get a job to do X, y and Z, and now all those rules are broken. The idea is that, like you don't have to fire this linear path to become a. I, for example, is successful in during a certain way, I can stay at home, I can literally eat food on a video stream and make money. Right, the idea of like these, like the most kind of you know, ludicrous things that we can imagine.

Mike Chung:

Seemingly mundane activity, right Exactly.

Mike Chung:

And the fact that, like I can not only just thrive, I can thrive doing those types of things. So it's I think that's what really kind of changes the mentality, particularly for a marketer, is that we always used to say, like the American dream, is this right, this is how you get there and we're going to intercept you at these kind of junctions. The world is truly your oyster and how you get there it really depends on where you want to go and you can create these new kind of areas for your own personal development, but also personal success.

Mike Chung:

So, getting back to Gen Z and car ownership, car fandom, what are some of the interesting things that you've been finding in your research to the individuals that either are owning cars or perhaps are not choosing to own cars for whatever reasons? What are some of the things that stand out, mike?

Mike Chung:

Yeah, I mean really the biggest one that's obviously been a hot topic for a lot of people is the transition to EVs. I think there was a lot of momentum, particularly for the last one to two years, about how we transition fully to electric vehicles. Years about how we transition fully to electric vehicles and what that means, not only for car and car ownership but the state of the country. Right, because when you transition that drastically from one mode of transportation to another one, it does change some fundamental things about how you view ownership, for example, how you view even sustainability. And when you look at Gen Z, they were generally at the forefront of driving a lot of this. Even when you started serving younger people, people who aren't even of driving age in the past couple of years, you always saw Tesla kind of rise to the top in terms of like the most admired and respected brands.

Mike Chung:

So the interesting kind of rise and general fall of Tesla kind of overlaps with what Gen Z is living through right now.

Mike Chung:

Right, because there's a lot of, you know, optimism and thought that like we're going to change everything and we're going to move 100% to EV by year X has definitely shifted and I think this generational cohort. It does feel some of that conflict because I think you know, some of the older generations are kind of pushing back. You know, hey, let's make a transition more gentle, rather than kind of switching from traditional ICE all the way to EV, like what are some kind of middle ground. But the EV conversation, again, we could talk about that for hours. I mean, that's a separate conversation in itself. But the Gen Z relationship with EV, I think will really be interesting to see what happens over the next two to three years. Right, will they push back on what we think may happen from the current administration of kind of pulling back, or will they continue to push forward as they get more affordable vehicles that we think will be coming within the EV space?

Mike Chung:

You mentioned the rise and fall of Tesla, like what was making it so appealing in Gen Z's eyes and perhaps what has what has reduced that.

Mike Chung:

So when we look at Gen Z from a market cast perspective, we talk about, like, certain aspects that all generational cohorts look at certain brands and we have a contract we call fandom and there's a couple of key things within fandom that kind of make it up, make up what it is. But when you talk about fandom as a core concept, distinction and relevance come up as very key kind of components. And when you look at Tesla as a brand, particularly when you look around from 2019 to 2023 or so, there isn't a more distinctive brand out there, non-automotive included. Right, they were very aggressive in not only breaking the rules and traditional conventions of automotive, but they were breaking the rules of any kind of, whether it's a technology brand or even a traditional consumer brand.

Mike Chung:

With that, you had Elon Musk as the head, right, and the idea is that Elon Musk is this generation's Steve Jobs, I think is very much apparent, even much more so. And to have that personification of this rebellious innovator who's willing to break all the rules to make sure we get what we deserve, I think is really kind of appealing, particularly to this generation. You talk about his associating with spacex, right, the boring company, all of his other kind of exploits that all in itself really kind of became this beacon for this generation and we really feel like there's that allure again, there's allure for other generational sure but yeah, certainly he's been an icon exactly, oh, and that's a great term, I think you know as an iconic individual, like he took the mantle of people who preceded him.

Mike Chung:

And when you look at all these other kind of companies, they, they don't have that personality. And when you're talking about brand personality, which you know we talked about marketing all the time, he is the ultimate literal brand personality, right, because he embodies everything.

Mike Chung:

I'm picturing somebody riding in on a white stallion with Excalibur in their hands, and he was almost like that figure. Exactly In that 2019 to 2023 period at least.

Mike Chung:

And the one most interesting thing. So I mean you brought up your kids like my kids. While I was looking for vehicles to purchase a couple years ago, I asked them like what do you want to buy? And my four-year-old at the time was like we want to buy a Tesla. My eight-year-old definitely said we want to buy a Tesla and I asked why? And they're like the fart mode, right.

Mike Chung:

I mean things that are inconsequential, they're ridiculous, and I told my son and some friends the story. I don't know if you know the story of how Elon Musk kind of determined the naming convention of the vehicles. I don't think I'm familiar with it. So the Model S is obviously the first major one. There's the Model X, there's a Model 3, which was supposed to be called the Model E, but there's some issues because Ford technically owns that, and then the Model Y. If you put them out in sequence it's s-e-x-y sure. So the idea that, like you know, he, he's very tongue-in-cheek and he's very, you know, proud to kind of own that you're, and again there's there's a sense of like oh, he represents someone like me, a little bit more juvenile maybe at times, but very serious about driving innovation pushing the edge a little bit exactly and that that kind of behavior really appealed particularly to a younger generation, because they're like I can still do that and be successful.

Mike Chung:

I can still do that and push the boundaries and be innovative and particularly with younger generations who may be more environmentally, sustainability related, uh, environmentally and sustainability minded as well. As I don't want to quite say stick it to the establishment, but there perhaps is that element of, like you said, the rebelliousness as well.

Mike Chung:

Exactly, and, and I think when we talk also about like we talked at the very beginning of the podcast about like experiential and experiences and you look at not only Tesla but all these other brands that are really focusing on like I'm not just going to force feed you an advertising message right. Like I'm gonna let you experience what the brand is like. And I think when you look at some of the most successful auto and non automotive brands, they've really bought experiential to the forefront and it could be as mundane as you know how a paint brand creates an experience at your local Home Depot or Lowe's, all the way up to like a Pebble Beach Concord Elegance and what that kind of you know physical experience is manifested. But I think when you look at the way that all people kind of look towards brands is that they want to be a part of the brand and experience is obviously one way that that makes it a lot more tangible thanks for sharing that.

Mike Chung:

And how are you getting this data from the? Uh, the gen z set? So you mentioned 18 to 26. So collecting data from minors is not an issue, because I know in research to collect data from a 15 year old or there's more checkboxes to go through. But I think about my experience administering online surveys, 10 minute surveys, shrinking attention spans and just different aspects to collecting data. But how is engaging with the Gen Z population different perhaps from other or from other cohorts from a data collection standpoint?

Mike Chung:

I mean, I think it's a combination of using more traditional methods. So we, particularly for the research that we did earlier this year, we did do a proprietary study that we do across multiple kind of industries and so for this we did an online survey. We had about 1,500 auto purchasers and tenders that we kind of segmented for this cohort. But what was interesting is that we know that quant gives you a part of the picture, right. We know that it gives you only so much in terms of really quantifying and maybe validating some potential hypothesis.

Mike Chung:

As well as identifying the narrative right exactly but what we did on top of that, which was pertinent and very significant to this group as well, is that we did some qualitative and we've all done or seen some sort of focus group types of material that's out there. The one of the things that we use that that was pertinent for this group is obviously, yeah, the online focus groups, and the online focus groups is that much more significant to this generation? Because, one, they've grown up doing the zoom calls, right. They've grown up understanding how teams works, whereas I remember when we first started rolling out online focus groups years ago, you know, there's still that hesitance like, hey, I'm, I'm looking at a screen, I'm in a room with other people, right.

Mike Chung:

But when you look at working. Can you hear me?

Mike Chung:

But it's a very familiar environment for a lot of people within this age group, and so you actually see a lot more engagement, sometimes for from younger people in online focus groups, whereas before it's like am I losing something by not having a bunch of people in a room?

Mike Chung:

And it may be flipped for the 50 plus crowd, where it's like they're used to in-person. You put them online. They're going through the same growing pains as a 18 year old or might be going through If you put him or her in an actual physical room for exactly people. I'm not used to being around people. What's going on? Well, I and I think it's gross over generalization, of course, but yeah, of course.

Mike Chung:

Well, that's what we do in research. Are we generalizing that? We never, but I think it goes back to what we're talking about. As well as this idea of like, there's this general like social anxiety that a lot of people have and that this actually creates a safer space for a lot of people to be more honest and open. And so, as a platform, I think one you're not going to see online focus groups go away. If anything, you're going to continue to see that type of behavior Because, again, it's very comfortable for some people.

Mike Chung:

Some people have that sense of social anxiety where I don't want to go into a facility, right when I'm with a bunch of strangers, I can do it in my car.

Mike Chung:

So I've done a lot of focus groups where, literally, you're on a phone in a car, in a safe space, you spend an hour doing whatever, whether it's a one-on-one or a one-on-many, but you get a lot of great insights because they're feeling comfortable and that's what you want.

Mike Chung:

You want them to feel at ease, to be able to share themselves and, honestly, even have some anonymity potentially right, because maybe I don't have to. You see my first name on a screen and there are all these people that I may or may not ever meet again. So with that, the third component, like I mentioned, the first being, you know, the traditional quant, the second being qualitative. We also did quite a bit of social conversation analysis and it's something that MarketCast, we're actually very good at understanding, because there that true self really can come out, I think for all of us. But again, if you grew up with social media, as a lot of these, these people do within our research, like it literally grew up with them, right, they saw how Facebook and Instagram have morphed, you know whether snap or whatnot. So the idea of like, watching and kind of analyzing their social media and social conversation to feed in as context to the research, I think is invaluable and you're going to need to do that, I think, in almost all research moving forward.

Mike Chung:

So for the last part, how do you collect that? Are you setting up groups for people to participate in and you're prompting with questions, or you're watching people's activity on their personal accounts? I mean, how does that work?

Mike Chung:

So, yeah, it's more the latter, like we have the ability, through the technology that we have in-house, to actually, like, monitor, engage overall social conversation. We're not necessarily tying it back to necessarily the individual qual right. So if Steve went through and did a focus group, we're not necessarily tracking Steve's social conversation, but we're seeing, like hey, we're seeing this type of behavior, this type of conversation happening within this topic.

Mike Chung:

Kind, of like what's trending on Instagram or on Facebook.

Mike Chung:

And what I find interesting, that I love about that type of analysis, is that, I mean, we'll all see the same macro conversations, right, I think we don't need detailed analysis to see the macro level stuff. But when you see these I don't know if the technical term is micro conversations, but there are these threads that constantly kind of go through that you and I may not be a part of because we're not in that group, right, when you talk about trending topics, trending hashtags, but it's relevant for the people who kind of live within that space. That's what we're tracking and we're understanding. And that way you have another layer to say, hey, this is what the quant study tells us, this is what the qual tells us and it's consistent with this theme that we're seeing. And here's some tidbits of like hey, I have this aversion to BMW because of X, y and Z. They may not bring that up in a group, but we can layer that in to say, oh, that's how it manifests itself in real life.

Mike Chung:

Right, oh, thanks for sharing that. And I'm thinking about even recruitment for individuals into an online focus group, and I know Roblox, fortnite. Various online games are popular Like how are you, how do you recruit for these types of studies?

Mike Chung:

I mean one. I mean we work with a lot of great partners and that's literally their job is to make sure that they're getting the most high quality recruits. I think what's really interesting in today's age in terms of research and sample kind of acquisition is that there's a lot of fraud, fraudulent activity happening out there and it's very hard sometimes to distinguish like what is a real respondent. There are places outside the country or inside the country that all they do is, whether they use AI or physical individuals, to manufacture respondents.

Mike Chung:

Right, right it's almost like the professional survey taker in a way.

Mike Chung:

Exactly.

Mike Chung:

They know like how to get through the screeners Right.

Mike Chung:

And so for quant, I think it's more about you know volume, right, so it could be an AI farm in China, right? That's literally just manufacturing responses by the thousands. That's literally just manufacturing responses by the thousands. Or, to your point, we're seeing the rise of AI really creating some of these very sophisticated models of false respondents. On the flip side, that's using AI for nefarious purposes.

Mike Chung:

When you look at AI for the good, there's a lot of things that you can do with AI that actually do help us as researchers, right, there's synthetic audiences. There's the concept of how do you take a very limited audience, size and kind of project out some of their values and beliefs, based on what we've seen in AI. Types of models that project that behavior. Types of models that project that behavior. So I think it's a fine line of like. How do we use technology for good when we know that there are bad actors out there if we're trying to use them for their own purposes?

Mike Chung:

And again, it's a podcast topic in itself, or a series of podcasts, because I think we're at this stage right now, where AI is a part of our lives, whether you like it or not, sure, and I think it's something that we didn't talk about in our research, but every conversation we talk about Gen Z in particular, particularly within the academic setting is that AI can help or hurt a huge swath of people and we're learning how to deal with that, and I think what will happen in the next two, three years is that we'll come to terms with what AI means for all of us, and I think that that's something that I'm really interested to see what happens.

Mike Chung:

Oh, thank you, and I have two follow-up questions. The first one may be, as you alluded, to, a separate conversation, but even just in a nutshell, you mentioned synthetic AI. Can you just tell me what exactly you mean by that, because I've heard the term but I'm not sure if I'm completely familiar with it and maybe a benefit to all of our listeners.

Mike Chung:

I mean, by no means am I an expert at it. I mean I've gone to a couple of conferences that kind of has talked about it for several years. But in a nutshell, it's really about like, like, what machine learning can do to essentially replicate what we think audiences will look like based on a small sample, right? So the idea is that, like, if you get a respondent to answer enough questions over and over again, then you'll get a sense of where they might answer other questions that haven't existed yet. So the idea is that, like, if, if we ask, you know and get enough information about you, mike, mike Chung, which we're to say that they can essentially project out like, oh, we understand that you know this is your general value set and beliefs, right, and this is the behavior that you exhibit when you're, when you're given certain types of stimulus. And so by, by collecting all of that at a micro level, at an individual level, if we had a thousand of those for someone like you, then we can project out maybe that's what 10,000 people would look like.

Mike Chung:

Maybe that's what 100,000 people would look like. Oh, that's really helpful and, as you were talking, it made me think about the proliferation of all this data that you're collecting. So there's the collection aspect, and then there's the combing through it and analytical aspects. I would imagine ai, machine learning, advanced algorithms can certainly be exploited, but what are you seeing in your own practice with regard to how you and your teams are going through all these mountains of data?

Mike Chung:

I mean, one of the biggest benefits of AI I think that we've all seen in some way, shape or form is the ability for it to summarize and give themes to mountains of data. Right, I mean, I use it on a near daily basis to help kind of collate and understand what. What's happening not only for me personally but to take certain types of large data sets and kind of put it into a more kind of cohesive format. There's a platform that my coworker was just telling me about that I'm actually going to look into, I think, pretty much this weekend is that you can take any large data set, whether it's a report or a paper, and feed it into this AI and what the AI will do is actually create a podcast of that topic or report. Wow, and we'll actually create a dialogue between two people like this setting literally about whatever complex topic it is. So if it's about, you know, understanding the Affordable Care Act, for example, you can literally put in the entire dossier of the Affordable Care Act into this AI and over.

Mike Chung:

I think it's like a one or two hour session. It'll act as if two people are interacting, right, and actually something that you can listen to. That feels a lot more easy to digest right Sure, than trying to read a government document, and to me, that's one of the biggest wins we could have, because the biggest issue always has been like how do we synthesize large amounts of data and create those themes? And it's been a brute force kind of human effort up until now. I don't subscribe to the fact that they should be doing every day I should be doing everything but I love the idea of have it do the first pass right. Have you know human interaction to make sure it's validated and makes sense, because we know that you know. The idea of, like you know, ai being incorrect, we know is definitely valid, but it's that let's use our resources to something more efficient than just doing something you know for the sake of doing it in that way.

Mike Chung:

Right, yeah, I have heard of that. I don't remember the name of that application, but it's just fascinating to think about. The software can create a podcast between two people and have it sound so human, with the pauses, the ums and exactly.

Mike Chung:

That's exactly what I was thinking that type of language.

Mike Chung:

And all of you listeners out there, rest assured, these are the real Mike Chung and Mike Chung, just in case you were wondering. So, just getting back to the uh, the fandom research, um, in your report you have relevance, you have presence, you have distinction as three main pillars for engagement with this cohort Gauge and be relevant, be present, be distinctive with the Gen Z cohort that perhaps might be either different than other age cohorts or noteworthy, if you will, in your mind, mike.

Mike Chung:

I think it's interesting because I think we're seeing the savviness of every generation kind of coming to bear like again, as they're inundated and exposed a lot more things. And what I see with Gen Z in particular is that they are among the most savvy to break through a lot of the part of my friends. But the brand BS that you're seeing out there and I think you know you're not going to get away from doing you know, like the church advertising that you're going to see as foundational stuff, but the idea that I'm change and will change the perception of your brand, positive and negative gain, you know, in this context, like automotive supplier that might have an Instagram page to think that you know that's inconsequential. When you look at Gen Z in particular, they are always looking, whether they're looking for good or bad things, they're always looking and they can actually find ways to demonize or really kind of bolster something that may seem mundane. And when you look at the behavior, that's what I find fascinating.

Mike Chung:

Like who knows what's going to happen with TikTok as a platform? We know that they may not exist in a couple months in its current form, but what I tell everyone is, whether you like TikTok or not, go on there for a couple of days and see the kind of content that's out there and see what seems to resonate, because some of the most interesting things that I've learned about not only Gen Z, but just different generations and you can almost see them they're almost kind of more delineated within there, within that platform, to see what really is popping. And that's what I love about TikTok and other social media platforms is that they have the visual representation of what's trending, what's popular, right, you don't have to validate yourself.

Mike Chung:

You see, this person has 1.1 million likes this many subscribers and some of the behavior I see on TikTok. I'll give you a very cogent example. There's this trend of people at dealerships who record live interactions with customers and negotiations on TikTok and other platforms as well. They have a huge following and it's the most bizarre thing because you don't think it's that exciting to be part of an automotive purchase and know purchase and negotiation right. I'd rather be, you know, at the dentist, frankly.

Mike Chung:

And that's probably saying a lot for a lot of people. Yeah.

Mike Chung:

But this idea that, like, there's this true interest of like, oh, that local Toyota dealership down the road they're having a live negotiation and they literally have live negotiation on screen or they record them, and the fact that they're getting an audience, and I wish I could tell you I'm not a psychologist by any means but like, what is the psychology behind that? Like, again, I'm taking 12, 15, 20 minutes out of my day to watch. I mean, that's valuable time that I'm investing into this. I'll admit I get sucked time that I'm investing into this. I'll admit I get sucked into that stuff as well. But I think, again, a lot of stuff that we're seeing Gen Z do you're going to see it proliferate into other audiences and other kind of groups. But that's something I feel like don't take anything that you do, even on a micro level, for granted and I say that to anyone listening to this podcast even on an individual level, because anything you say and do can be amplified, for good or for bad, whether it's on social or other types of platforms.

Mike Chung:

Thanks for sharing that and not just by age, but any demographic, any persona, because we're researchers, we've done persona studies and there are just so many different quote-unquote buckets that any one individual can fall into and, I guess, to play armchair psychologist for for that phenomenon you highlighted, yeah, I can just imagine a number of reasons why somebody might watch. It's like, oh, I can learn from this. Or oh, man, you know, my stomach was churning, I'd like to just, I know that person's pain. Or you know, at what point do they see? Okay, let me check with the manager. So there's probably so many different types of reasons why somebody would watch and it's just utterly fascinating. So I'm going to have to tune into some of those, I think. So thanks for sharing that with me. You know, I think we're coming towards the end here. Is there anything else you want to share with regard to trends that you're seeing or data collection, before we go into some more fun personal questions here?

Mike Chung:

Yeah, I mean, the one thing I want to bring up and it's kind of the topic of the moment is, you know, we talked about distinction a little bit and really kind of making a splash I think we talked about it in a previous conversation of, like, when you look at auto, a lot of it's a sea of sameness, right, people don't want to take risks, and one of the most interesting case studies in the last month or so that's happened now is, you know, the the Jaguar reinvention as a brand. That's happened now is the Jaguar reinvention as a brand, and it's fascinating to see the polarized kind of response. Right, like, people clearly have very strong feelings about what Jaguar is trying to do. And to give some background, jaguar rebranded itself. They've been very kind of slow, they've not released any new product for a while and they released a lot of information on, whether through social media or whatnot, that they're rebranding themselves.

Mike Chung:

And the rebrand to some people I think the direct comment was it looks like a Benetton ad right, the initial teaser video it had a lot of models dressed in very kind of funky clothes with bright colors and no vehicle to be seen in any of the work, and so when you look at that kind of funky clothes with bright colors and no vehicle to be seen in any of the work, and so when you look at that kind of execution, I loved it personally because it really showed, hey, we're trying to be distinctive, we're trying to be different and we have very little to lose because even though we're iconic, you know, 100 plus year old brand, we still know where we came from and we're going to kind of continue on that path.

Mike Chung:

We still know where we came from and we're going to kind of continue on that path. And I feel like you can, like I mentioned before, the reward is definitely there for brands that, even if you do it on a micro level, you couldn't be rewarded, but you need to be brave, and bravery right now is, I feel like, in short supply, given kind of where we are as an industry, and I think there's ways to be brave in big ways and small ways, but if you do it right, I mean, the rewards are potentially endless Fascinating and you mentioned earlier about your interest in car shows and I know you've shared this story about how you used to attend car shows as a younger child and I remember you said you may have even gotten lost at one.

Mike Chung:

Can you mind sharing with our audience a little bit about that?

Mike Chung:

I mean, I have to take the word of other people who told me the story because I don't remember it myself. But I grew up in San Francisco as a child and one of the most kind of memorable events for me as a young child is going to the auto show with my dad. And back in the day the younger people may or may not even remember this is that one of the best things about going to a car show or auto show was that they used to have posters that they would give out for free and you roll them up and you take them home and you put them on your walls. And I remember the first time I went I got a bunch of car posters. I don't know what ever happened to them, but I remember that was my goal, like, hey, I want to go back to you know, go to the car show and get some car posters. Apparently. One day I left my parents' business Middle of the day. I hopped on a bus to go to Moscone Center where the auto show was being held. The police called my parents saying hey, your child is here by himself. He's not allowed to go to the auto show without parental supervision. And it just showed the fact that I was very driven no pun intended to be in the car industry. I was the kid who had. I had a 300ZX poster right by my head at the foot of my bed.

Mike Chung:

I wanted a lot of cars that were not necessarily the Mustangs or the muscle cars, but the cars that I really gravitated towards, and my first car growing up was a Volkswagen Rabbit. Everyone has a great story about their first car and that's where even this Gen Z research. It's a little sad because we have these attachments about their first car and that's where even this Gen Z research is. It's a little sad because you know, we have these attachments to our first car right. Like you know, most of the time they're either handed down or there's some story behind it, and I love this idea of these stories that we have with cars.

Mike Chung:

And you can see here I have some Hot Wheels in the back. This is one of my favorite Hot Wheels of all time. Most people have never seen this van. I have a personal love for minivans as well, but this is a Toyota van I think that was literally the name of the van and we drove to Yellowstone from San Francisco one year. And if you've ever seen. Japan has a lot of these. They're called the micro vans and whatnot. I love these things. Whenever I see one, I have to take a picture, but you can kind of see I can't see it on the podcast, but yeah, the van itself.

Mike Chung:

it's just so iconic. I grew up in a world where Toyota was still coming up in the world right.

Mike Chung:

Like the idea that like clearly they had a reputation but nowhere near the reputation they have now. And I think that's the thing I love about you know, I mean you can complain of getting older and and whatnot, but the idea that, like you and I have grown to see, like the, the, the maturity of, like what happens when a brand kind of comes to fruition, like I remember seeing my first acura ever and I had the benefit of working on the Acura brand years ago and to say like hey, that Integra that's in the lobby was the one I lusted after when I was 14 years old.

Mike Chung:

Right right.

Mike Chung:

right, there's something about auto that I mean people can say I love working financial services or CPG or whatnot, but auto has this like it's just very romanticized, that I feel like very few kind of industries have yeah, and, like you said, the, uh, the attachment we might have to a car, there's a, there's an emotional response with cars and that first car we've had your favorite car, your dream car, and so, yeah, I can see why you'd have such a passion for it. And for those of you who, uh, didn't have the benefit of seeing the, uh, the hot wheels vehicle that mike showed to me, it made me think of the, the, the volkswagen vanigans, yes, where it's kind of distinctive, it's a van, but it's got its own sort of quirk to it, if you will. Is that fair to say, mike?

Mike Chung:

100, I mean I, and I do love the van again as well. They had the west valley edition where they had like a camper tent as part of it right yeah and um, and then I mean mike volkswagen's bringing it all back right. They have the new um, the, the id buzz and whatnot. So what's old is new?

Mike Chung:

I don't know if the words right out of my mouth exactly um, I don't think we'll see a toyota van anytime soon.

Mike Chung:

Um, we'll give it.

Mike Chung:

You never know I mean, you never know, but uh, how old were you or did your relatives tell you how old you were when that incident occurred?

Mike Chung:

going to six or seven. Um, again, I I was a very adventurous child, but again it's just. It's funny because I never thought I would ever work in cars. Right, you think like you have a passion for something and then you just kind of it becomes, you know, a hobby. But I've truly had the fortune of not only working with cars but working on brands that I've really loved and appreciated. I worked I mentioned I worked on Acura for a while, I worked on Lexus for almost 11 years on the agency side, but I got to really see. I've worked on Hyundai and Genesis and Kia and, as a proud Korean-American, it's really fun to see, because I grew up the summer is actually living in usan, um, which is essentially the detroit of of south korea yeah, very industrial area and so the idea that, like, all this comes full circle.

Mike Chung:

I feel like you know they were meant to be sure, and, um, I'll put out a plug because I I actually love the, the genesis and kia brands in particular like it's really interesting to see. I mean, genesis came from nothing, right, we saw it in front of us, yeah, and it's like a proud parent, right, like, oh my God, I may have only had 1%, 1.5, 1% to do with anything, but to say I was there at the quote unquote beginning is really something that I'm really proud of.

Mike Chung:

Oh, that's fantastic and congratulations on that. From a personal achievement, professional achievement perspective and kind of, like you said, seeing a brand grow up too, I mean seeing when Hyundai came over as kind of a bargain, if you will brand, in the late 80s and I remember this being at a comedy club and one guy said, yeah, you know, I had a Hyundai accent. And when you drove up a hill and if you turned off the radio you swear you can hear it saying I think I can, I think I can, and I still remember that. And now look at the standards they have the Genesis, before that the Eclips, even so, amazing. And last thing I'll mention before I go to my last question is when you mentioned earlier in the podcast growing up in San Francisco bus or car or Uber, yeah, and I was like, oh, you didn't mention bicycle and that's probably makes sense for San Francisco Exactly.

Mike Chung:

So one last yeah, go ahead. It is interesting. I'll add one last thing I failed to mention robo-taxis, which oh sure. Because you mentioned San Francisco and we know Waymo is going to be big, but that's something that if we do ever talk about Gen Z ever again. It's something new that we don't know If you've ever ridden in a Waymo. If you have not, I would highly recommend it. It is the most surreal experience I think I've had, one of the most I've ever had in my life.

Mike Chung:

Again it's one of those things where it's going to be part of our lives whether we want it or not, and it's just fascinating to see where it's come.

Mike Chung:

I think about Total Recall and the Johnny Cabin. Here we are, it's fascinating. So one last question here for you, Mike Chung is any other Mike Chung's you've come across in your life?

Mike Chung:

So it's interesting One. I mean, it's actually more of an annoyance than anything else, so I doubt that this Mike Chung will ever hear this podcast. But there is a Mike Chung that actually owns, I think, a Wetzel's Pretzels franchise in Philadelphia. I get all of his emails and so I think I get maybe one a week and it's related to his business and clearly he has an email address that's very similar to mine, and so I remember one time I I just went on looked up you know how many there are, I think, on LinkedIn I think I've seen maybe 80 or 90. Um, and again, the the, the story of how even we connected is yeah, is that?

Mike Chung:

um, I mean it's. It's actually an interesting story because me and Mike obviously don't know each other for very long, but I've been, like I said, in auto for a long time. I actually used to work in doing a lot of PR as well back in the day when I worked at Edmonds, so I used to be publicized quite a bit in different kind of media channels, but obviously it stopped more recently. But I started getting pains from people saying, oh, congratulations on your new job, and I hadn't switched jobs. So I thought it was a little strange. And then people actually started. I think that one person actually tagged me in an article that you were quoted in, saying this isn't you, and it said you know Mike Chung of the Auto Care Association, head of researcher insights, or something along those lines. So it tracked right. If I didn't know any better, I would think it was myself, as well and obviously I had to do my due diligence.

Mike Chung:

I had to look you up and say like, hey, I mean our, our paths obviously aren't very similar from where we started, but we're clearly in the same area and I started doing a lot, lot more. You know background on you and I was like I need to meet this guy, I need to talk to him, see what he's about, cause he obviously loves data. You know he has an interest in in cars, um, and I love just connecting with people like that. So that that's how it got started. But the last part of the question that you have is that, um, that I have a very, very desired email address. I won't share, obviously, for personal reasons, but I've had people who actually have offered to buy the email address for me. Oh wow, it wasn't a lot. I mean a couple hundred dollars. I guess that's more than I expect, but it's such a part of your life nowadays, sure yeah, Like the idea that like, can I part with my email address?

Mike Chung:

that's literally on everything that I own, but it's. It's that interesting because, again, michael's one of the most common names in the world. Chung is obviously a very common name, given, you know, preponderance in China and Korea and whatnot. So it's. It's a popular name and I've not I've went to school with one, but other than that I've not physically met anyone else. Until you and I meet one day.

Mike Chung:

Yeah, well, thanks for sharing that. And my Mike Chung story is this so I'm Michael K Chung and I grew up in Lima, ohio, and when I was applying to the Harvard School of Public Health, now known as the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University, I called to see how my application was going and they, over the phone and this is the mid-90s, because we didn't have the login portals quite at that point yet and the lady on the receiving end of the admissions office line congratulated me because I had been accepted. So I was very excited and very thankful for the opportunity, and so when I started school, I met another Michael Chung who I think was also from Ohio, and he was in a program that was a one-year master of public health program for medical students. So, for those who are not familiar with public health schools, there are a number of master's programs PhD, doctorate types of programs and I was in a two-year full-time master's program and Michael was in a one-year program for MD students.

Mike Chung:

And so I always looked back and thought, huh, I wonder if, when I called the admissions office, they got my file mixed up with his and they said, oh yeah, you got in my file mixed up with his and they said oh yeah, you got in me thinking they were talking to the other Michael Chung. But perhaps, upon realizing that they had told me, they said, oh well, we don't want to let the poor guy down. So we, but I tend to be self deprecating. But I think the last thing I'll share about that is I had a dinner party at my apartment a few months later, invited a few of my classmates, not realizing that one of my classmates I think her name was Maria she was dating Michael, the other Michael Chung at the time, but I hadn't invited him because I just invited my classmates.

Mike Chung:

So when I found out later that they were dating each other, I was like oh I really should have invited him, but he was cool as a cucumber, never held it against me, never batted an eyelash. So for that and other things, I just tip my hat to Michael Chung, wherever he is in the world practicing medicine and public health. So, mike, so great to have you on this edition of Indicators and thank you for being a guest. And to all of our listeners out there, thank you so much for joining us. Until the next time, we wish you a great day. Take care everybody. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Auto Care ON AIR. Make sure to subscribe to our podcast so that you never miss an episode. Don't forget to leave us a rating and review. It helps others discover our show. Auto Care ON AIR is proud to be a production of the AutoCare Association, dedicated to advancing the auto care industry and supporting professionals like you.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Behzad Rassuli

Host
Head Shot

Jacki Lutz

Host
Head Shot

Michael Chung

Host
Head Shot

Stacey Miller

Host