In 2009, Ford brought its new supermini, the Fiesta, over from Europe in a brave attempt to attract the attention of young Americans. It passed out 100 of the cars to 1.________ (INFLUENCE) bloggers for a free six-month test-drive, with just one condition: document your experience online. Young bloggers loved the car. Young drivers? Not so much. After a brief burst of 2._______ (EXCITE) Fiesta sales plummeted.
How do you sell cars to Millennials (a k a Generation Y)? The fact is, today’s young people simply don’t drive like their predecessors did.
All of these strategies share a few key 6.___________ (ASSUME): that demand for cars within the Millennial generation is just waiting to be 7.________ (LOCK); that as the economy slowly recovers, today’s young people will 8._________ (EVENT) want to buy cars as much as their parents and grandparents did; that a 9.________ (FINE-TUNE) appeal to Millennial values can coax them into 10.___________ (DEAL).
Perhaps. But what if these assumptions are simply wrong? What if Millennials’ 11.________ (AVERT) to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent 12._______ (GENERATION) shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big 13._______ (SPEND) —most notably, housing. And its answer has large 14.________ (IMPLY) for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of 15.__________ (RECOVER).
16._________ (NEED) to say, the Great Recession is responsible for some of the decline. But it’s highly possible that a perfect storm of 17.________ (ECONOMY) and 18._________ (DEMOGRAPHY) factors—from high gas prices, to re-urbanization, to 19.______ (STAGNATE) wages, to new technologies enabling a different kind of 20._________ (CONSUME) —has fundamentally changed the game for Millennials. The largest generation in American history might never spend as 21. _________ (LAVISH) as its parents did—nor on the same things.
Zipcar has become the world’s largest car-sharing company. It owes much of its success to two facts. First, gas prices have more than doubled, which has made car-sharing 22._______ (ALLURE). Second, smartphones became 23.__________ (UBIQUITY), which made car-sharing easier.
The typical new car costs $30,000 and sits in a garage or parking spot for 23 hours a day. Zipcar gives drivers access to cars they don’t have to own. Cars used to be what people aspired to own. Now it’s the smartphone.
Some automakers are slowly coming around to that view. Last year, Ford agreed to become Zipcar’s largest 24.__________ (SUPPLY) on more than 250 college campuses. Young people prize “access over 25._________ (OWN),” said Sheryl Connelly, head of global consumer trends at Ford. “I don’t think car-buying for Millennials will ever be what it was for 26.________ (BOOM). But we know if they have the opportunity to drive Ford, they’re more likely to choose Ford if they buy a car.”
” Smartphones compete against cars for young people’s big-ticket dollars. But they also provide some of the same psychic benefits—opening new vistas and carrying us far from the physical space in which we reside. Connelly said.
In other words, mobile technology has not only 27._________ (POWER) car-sharing but also friendships that can be maintained from a distance. The 28._______ (SHOT) could be a continuing shift from automobiles to mobile technology, and a big 29.________ (REDUCE) in spending.
Read the rest of the article on the Atlantic website
KEY
1. influential
2. excitement
3. enlisted
4. quirky (peculiar)
5. supposedly
6. assumptions
7. unlocked
8. eventually
9. finer-tuned
Fine-tune something to make very small changes to something so that it is as good as it can possibly be. Sp. hacer ajustes, afinar. Fine-tuning (N) E.g. The system is set up but it needs some fine-tuning.
10. dealerships.
Dealership a business that buys and sells products, especially cars, for a particular company. Sp. concesión, franquicia. E.g. a Ford dealership.
Coax: /kəʊks/ to persuade somebody to do something by talking to them in a kind and gentle way. Sp. Convencer, persuadir. E.g. coax somebody/something (into doing something) She coaxed the horse into coming a little closer. Coax somebody/something (into/out of something) He was coaxed out of retirement to help the failing company.
11. aversion (/əˈvɜːʃn/ a strong feeling of not liking somebody/something. E.g. a strong aversion. He had an aversion to getting up early.)
12. generational
13. spending
14. implications
15. recovery
16. Needless
17. economic
18. demographic /ˌdeməˈɡræfɪk/
19 stagnating (/ˌstæɡˈneɪtɪŋ/ not making progress)
20. consumption
21. lavishly (extravagantly)
22. alluring /əˈlʊər ɪŋ/ (attractive and exciting)
23. ubiquitous /juːˈbɪkwɪtəs/ seeming to be everywhere. Very common.
24. supplier
25. ownership
26. Boomers (a person born during a baby boom, especially after the Second World War)
Big-ticket: costing a lot of money. E.g. big-ticket items.
27. empowered
28. upshot the final result of a series of events. Outcome. Sp. Resultado.
29. reduction
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