Aston Martin targets women buyers with DBX

The Aston Martin brand synonymous with the deadly skills and heavily masculine charm of British secret agent James Bond wants to expand its appeal among female buyers.

Britain’s famous sportscar maker has marketed its range of GT and sportscars almost exclusively to men for its 100-year-plus history, but says its first ever SUV, the DBX, is already altering its typical customer demographic.

Aston’s chief creative officer Marek Reichman says the company specifically sought input from women during development of the DBX, which has gone on sale in Australia priced from $357,000.

“One of the groups we had [during DBX development] was a female advisory board…getting their opinion on what the product should be,” said Reichman. “That was invaluable in terms of the make-up of DBX.

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“It’s about [the DBX’s] useability, the feeling of safety, the feeling of being in control of the [vehicle]. It’s not about pinking it and shrinking it, because that’s not what the female customer wants. It’s just the ergonomics of size. How do you use the car as a female customer?

“How has that played out? Well, if you look at our global [customer] average currently it’s about 92 per cent male, eight per cent female. But if you look at DBX on a global average, it’s a swing closer, so something like 85/15. And if you look at China it’s close to 60/40 [male/female skew].

“It’s not just DBX, it’s DBS and DB11 in China as well, but yes DBX has had an impact and has shifted the needle [of the Aston customer demographic] and will continue to do that.

“It’s just understanding the consumer, because typically in the past, call it for 100 years, we have talked only to male customers. Now for the last five or six years, we now have an opinion which comes from the female client.”

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Aston joins a growing list of luxury brands to declare a greater marketing focus on women. Lamborghini and Rolls-Royce both used their first SUVs, respectively the Urus and Cullinan, to openly attract more female buyers to their brands, while Ferrari has successfully increased its percentage of women owners since aiming to move beyond the “boy’s club” with the 2008 California convertible.

Mercedes-Benz introduced its 'She’s Mercedes' campaign in 2015 – a global initiative aimed specifically at addressing the mobility needs of female customers.

Aston is planning to expand its SUV offerings, while it will also introduce hybrid and plug-in hybrid versions of the DBX – expected in 2021 and 2023, respectively. An all-electric DBX is also understood to be in the pipeline.

Aston Martin says it is already well advanced with plans to join the growing trend for companies using sustainable materials. It acknowledges many of the new customers it is targeting will be coming from fashion brands who are already providing high-quality vegan alternatives to their famous leather products.

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“[Sustainable materials are] a huge part of the industry, and particularly for this consumer because they’re coming from certain fashion brands,” said Reichman. “Hermès offers non-leather [goods], for example, Stella McCarthy is all non-leather. And some of the materials are beautiful.”

For a specific example, Reichman references a new mushroom-roots-derived, biodegradable material which mimics leather and has been used by the likes of Hermès (for its classic Victoria bag) and by Adidas (for a biomaterials spin on its iconic Stan Smith trainers).

“If you look at the Valhalla show car in 2019, it featured a woven, banana-based material from the banana plant. We’re looking at getting such materials into all our products, and certain Q customers have requested it.

“It’s a huge opportunity to develop something unique but also ensure we’re pleasing the customer. And because we have the Q division, we can get the one-offs out there but then feed them into the core products.

Aston expects a big consumer shift away from leather eventually, while believing real leather is always likely to be an option for certain traditional customers.