Yet, just as in the technology story in the last chapter, most car ads are targeted at men, whether for the Super Bowl or not—and the feel of car-buying is still so masculine that 70 percent of women say they’re intimidated by automobile showrooms. Car-marketers, mistakenly, still think men are the only ones in charge.

  Fifty years ago, Dodge launched La Femme, the first American car to expressly target women. The car was pink, and it came with a matching rain bonnet, leather shoulder bag, compact, lighter, lipstick, and cigarette case. Marketed as the car “for Your Majesty, the modern American woman,” it flopped. But not because Dodge didn’t have the right instinct about attending to women’s tastes—it just didn’t have the right market research.

  As Super Bowl ad-makers well know, men shopping for cars are drawn to power and luxury. But that is not true for women, who over and over have been proved to care more when it comes to cars about affordability, practicality, and safety. According to 2005 Kelley Blue Book data that track new-car registrants by gender, the average horsepower of the top five cars bought by men was 367. The average horsepower of the top five cars bought by women was 172.

  Which makes sense, given the way men and women probably use their cars. If Soccer Moms are lugging children, groceries, and sports equipment around all day, they probably care less about going from 0 to 60 in under 5 than about keeping their kids and cargo safe, and having to tend to auto maintenance as little as possible.

  Indeed, in the first concept car to be designed and marketed exclusively by women, a 2004 Volvo, low maintenance was a high priority. In the design that emerged, an oil change would be needed only every 31,000 miles. There was no hood—drivers wouldn’t be tinkering in there, after all—just an engine access suitable for mechanics. Windshield wiper fluid could be refilled through a little hole behind the gas tank. There was no gas cap, just a roller-ball valve opening for the nozzle. When it was time for inspection, the car was programmed to send a wireless message to a local service center, which would notify the driver. And the engine—a low-emission, gas-electric hybrid—was environmentally friendly.

  These, apparently, are the priorities of the twenty-first-century American car-buyer. She is less interested in truck tires that come up to her chest, promising to lug her bouncing and reeling up craggy mountainsides. (Not that trucks are off the table—women are also the fastest-growing segment of truck and SUV buyers, purchasing 45 percent of all SUVs and nearly as many full-size pickups as minivans.) But ad campaigns for trucks that just focus on rock-climbing, rather than on utility and family, will likely fall flat for women.

  Car-makers, take note. Women car-buyers have not just arrived, they are the dominant force. Pink roadsters with matching rain bonnets were the wrong product, but the right idea. Women want the safer, studier Pontiac G6 Convertible, the Suzuki Forenza, and the Volkswagen New Beetle; men want the fancier, tougher Porsche 911 coupe, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, and the Ford GT.

  Even car brands don’t overlap: women’s top five brands are Pontiac, Hyundai, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Suzuki. Men’s top five brands are Dodge, Lincoln, Jaguar, Porsche, and Infiniti.

  That women are the majority force in automobile-buying ought to transform the industry. Cars should be designed more like the Volvo Concept Car, and marketed more like home appliances. But they’re still not, despite the fact that women’s power is not a prediction, but a fact.

  When the industry comes around, it will probably find that as women are better tended to, the overall car industry—from vehicle design to service and maintenance—gets stronger. As Jiffy Lube’s president has said, “Anything done to attract female consumers is readily accepted by male customers.” And as the Volvo president said when they rolled out the all-female-designed and marketed Concept Car in 2004, “We learned that if you meet women’s expectations, you exceed those for men.”

  So perhaps it is time for Ford and GM to stop copying the Japanese, and start copying Ann Taylor or Estée Lauder. Women want safe, easy-to-maintain cars with pleasing design elements. And they want women dealers. Ford is trying to retool its Mercury into its woman brand—but other than adding a “spokesmodel,” I am not sure I see changes infused through the system from design to showroom.

  The American car industry is having problems—many of them caused by conditions beyond its control, like serious labor shortages and expensive retirement packages. In my work with Bill Ford, we hit upon the idea that to regain their footing, American car manufacturers must again innovate to grow. This is easier said than done, but in the case of the emerging Woman Car-Buyer, it should not be so hard to focus on making the car, and car-buying, more enjoyable.

  In so many areas now, women are the majority, but men and the system are slow to recognize it. Women are the majority of students in college and in law school. Women are the majority of voters. Joining that list, while no one seems to be acknowledging it, is also that women are the majority of car-buyers. That may be the most overlooked marketing statistic in America.

  PART XIII

  Leisure and Entertainment

  Archery Moms?

  America is crazy about sports. Over 260 million of us play at least one, up from 235 million just ten years ago. We have something like two dozen all-sports cable channels, up from just ESPN in 1979. We put basketball players on our list of Most Admired Men. We elect bodybuilders and professional wrestlers as governors of some of our biggest states. We send football players to Congress.

  Ask anyone—sports in America means the Big Four: football, baseball, basketball, and ice hockey. And in our own lives, it means swimming, bowling, fishing, and biking.

  So here’s what’s fascinating. In the past twenty-five years, except for football, interest in the Big Four sports has been plummeting. Baseball is actually the favorite sport of only 11 percent of the nation—having not technically been “America’s Pastime” since the early 1970s. Basketball had its lowest TV ratings ever in the 2005–06 season. Hockey viewership is so miserable that, in 2005, ESPN stopped airing it altogether.

  And in terms of the sports we do, the number of us participating in “regular” ones like swimming, fishing, biking, and basketball is also falling off. So are baseball, tennis, volleyball, skiing, and roller-skating.

  So what are all of America’s New Athletes doing?

  Sports—like music and movies—is niching out. The boardroom hysteria of Major League Baseball notwithstanding, we don’t like sports less, we just like little sports more.

  Since 1995, the National Sporting Goods Association has been tracking the number of American children and adults who participate in various sports. By comparing 1995 to 2005, we can see that while some old standards like baseball, swimming, tennis, and volleyball are declining—by an average of 13 percent—what’s on the rise are the more individual, nature-based sports, many of which, twenty years ago, no one had ever heard of.

  Changes in Sports Participation, 1995-2005

  (Selected Sports)

  1995 Participants

  (in millions) 2005 Participants

  (in millions) Percent Growth

  Skateboarding 4.5 12.0 166.7

  Kayaking/Rafting 3.5 7.6 117.1

  Snowboarding 2.8 6.0 114.3

  Archery 4.9 6.8 38.8

  Mountain-Biking 6.7 9.2 37.3

  Backpacking/Wilderness-Camping 10.2 13.3 30.4

  Hunting (Bow & Arrow) 5.3 6.6 24.5

  Soccer 12 14.1 17.5

  Golf 24 24.7 2.9

  Basketball 30.1 29.9 -0.7

  Fishing 44.2 43.3 -2.0

  Swimming 61.5 58 -5.7

  Baseball 15.7 14.6 -7.0

  Tennis 12.6 11.1 -11.9

  Bicycle-Riding 56.3 43.1 -23.4

  Volleyball 18 13.2 -26.7

  In-line Roller-Skating 23.9 13.1 -45.2

  Source: National Sporting Goods Association, 2006

  As you can see from the chart above, the fastest-growing sport in America in the past ten years was skateboarding, now done by over 12 million people. That’s nearly the same number of Americans who have ever played softball or baseball.

  Next was kayaking/rafting, at over 7 million—and then snowboarding. No one ever heard of snowboarding until 1980, and now 6 million people do it. Snowboarders make up almost 1 in 3 users of ski resorts.

  Other fast-growing sports in America are mountain-biking, with 9 million participants; archery, with nearly 7 million; backpacking, with 13 million; and—get this—hunting with a bow and arrow, with nearly 7 million.

  In the past ten years—since we developed the idea of Soccer Moms—archery has grown at more than twice the rate of soccer. Hello, Archery Moms?

  And in case you think the niching of sports is just a fad among 30- and 40-somethings, it’s even more pronounced among teens. Teen NFL viewers under 18 now hold 10 percent of the market, as opposed to 13 percent in the 1990s, and the number of teens who play football, basketball, baseball, and ice hockey has fallen off as much as 23 percent in about the same time. But here’s what they are doing. Since the mid-1990s, the number of varsity high school lacrosse teams grew from 800 to over 2,300. Youth membership in the U.S. Fencing Association more than doubled, to nearly 8,000. Since 1990, the youth members of USA Dance, which includes competitive dancing, grew by almost 7-fold.

  And you can bet the national growth in skateboarding and snowboarding didn’t come from America’s 40-somethings.

  What’s going on here is that Big Sports have, for some people, gotten just a little too big, and smaller sports give them just a little more space to play, breathe, and engage their hearts.

  In the past ten years, watching and playing Big Sports have gotten increasingly taxing. More and more, the Big Four are perceived as hyper-corporate—what with their (formerly) Enron stadiums, garish wall-to-wall ads, and out-of-control player salaries. Strikes and lockouts have ruined games and whole seasons. The steroid scandals are a big downer. Of course there are still plenty of available fans, but the Big Four are facing some significant leakage to new activities.

  And perhaps relatedly, teen participation also got too intense. Kids showing up in sports medicine clinics with “Little League shoulders” and irrecoverably torn ligaments. Hypercompetitive students taking performance-enhancing drugs, and sidelining the regular kids who just wanted a little exercise and team-building. Not to mention the crazy parents on the sidelines, like the Massachusetts Hockey Dad who got in a fight with the father of another 10-year-old in 2000 and pummeled him to death.

  Against that backdrop—lacrosse, fencing, and dance start to look interesting. Gentler parents. More chance for more kids to play, and shine. Not to mention, some differentiation for those college applications. Only a few stars are heading for the top-ranked colleges in basketball—but what college wouldn’t take a second look at the National Junior Champion in Orienteering?

  The niching of sports is a perfect example of how more and more people are splintering off from the crowd to find greater individual satisfaction. Whereas sports used to be the way that the whole school—and later, the whole city—would come together to cheer the community’s toughest males in battle against their rivals, now a growing number of people are saying: good luck at the game, but I’m going kayaking.

  Notably, not one of the fastest-growing sports in America—skateboarding, kayaking, snowboarding, archery, backpacking, mountain-biking, or bow-and-arrow-hunting—depends substantially on teamwork. Sure, like all great sports, they demand persistence, strength, and agility—but today’s growing sports are heavy on personal intensity and inner strength, and lighter on playbooks, whistles, uniforms, and manicured fields.

  Sports in America are far from declining. They are just shifting from a communal rite to a personal one. What used to be a galvanizing event to bring us all together—like the modern-day version of watching lions tear people apart in the Colosseum—has become the opposite. Now sports help us retreat—often alone, and often to the mountains, the woods, or the water.

  Look for niche sports programming, and heroes. Look for it to spill over to not just Archery Moms, but skateboarding politicians.

  I would have joked that on the heels of the ragingly successful Fantasty Football, you should look for Fantasy Fishing—but it already exists. Choose your anglers, and bet what they’ll catch.

  And if the Olympics can get any nichier, it will. When the modern Olympics started in 1896, there were forty-three total events. Now between the Winter and Summer Olympics, there are 386. Is poker next? Don’t laugh. The 2005 Poker World Series was a huge draw on ESPN (yes, ESPN—the “E” stands for “entertainment”). But by the 2008 Olympics, watch for ballroom-dancing.

  Finally, look for more niche sports in the movies. Since 2003 alone, America’s biggest blockbusters have included the Oscar-winning Million Dollar Baby (boxing), and the Oscar-nominated Seabiscuit (horseracing). But let’s be honest. Boxing and horseracing were America’s favorite sports fifty years ago, and neither one practically even makes the list anymore for watching or playing. In 2005’s The Weather Man, Nicholas Cage—a Chicago TV personality—was a recreational archer. Weird, right? But onto something.

  The growing trend in sports in America skews toward the individual, the quiet, and the natural. No wonder in 2006, Tiger Woods the golfer toppled Michael Jordan the basketball star as America’s Most Popular Male Athlete, after a thirteen-year-reign. The Super Bowl is still the biggest event of professional sports and American TV, but there is a small but growing group that has turned off and tuned out of conventional sports, and turned on to alternative sports instead.

  XXX Men

  Some of the trends in this book involve a small group creating a big market. This trend involves a huge number of people involved in activities that, despite their frequency, seem to fly under the radar screen.

  There is hardly a more taboo topic in America than pornography. Vilified by both religious leaders (generally on the right) and feminists (generally on the left), it is about as widely frowned upon as any pastime in America. But in recent years, the Internet has made pornography so phenomenally easy to access that millions of otherwise upscale, respectable Americans are using it with stunning frequency. Magazine sales may have plummeted, but Internet porn has profited.

  About 40 million adults in the U.S. regularly visit Internet pornography sites. That’s more than ten times the number of people who regularly watch baseball. And which one, again, do we call America’s pastime?

  In fact, this marketplace is so large that porn is the norm. There is hardly a hotel room in America without easy access to porn. It is just a click away for everyone.

  A startling number of people view their porn at work. According to Websense, a vendor of Web security and filtering software, 70 percent of porn is downloaded between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. And 20 percent of American men admit accessing porn while at work. Are there five men who work where you do? Try sneaking a glimpse of their computer screens when they’re hunched over them, looking like they’re working. Chances are, at least one isn’t gazing at spreadsheets.

  What’s remarkable is that these are people who otherwise cleave to really high moral standards. In 2003, Today’s Christian Woman reported that 53 percent of men at that year’s Promise Keepers Convention admitted visiting a porn site the week before. Forty-seven percent of Christians say pornography is a major problem in the home.

  Former President Jimmy Carter made it okay to “lust in your heart.” The Internet is making it okay to lust at your screen, in private, at low cost.

  After all, it was the brilliant viral sex video campaigns that refreshed Pamela Anderson’s reputation and made Paris Hilton a celebrity. Both protested that their boyfriends circulated the videos without their permission. But both benefited from the huge publicity and interest they created. Whereas once, such videos would have made these stars untouchable, in today’s society, those videos made them stars.

  Already a $57 billion industry worldwide, porn generates $12 billion per year in the United States. Apparently in 2001, income from porn was larger than the annual revenue brought in by major league baseball, football, and basketball combined. A 2006 study said that revenue from Internet porn exceeds, by nearly 2 to 1, the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC.

  And porn’s share of cyberspace is, as one might expect, vast. There are over 4 million pornographic Web sites, about 12 percent of the total. One in 4 search engine requests on an average day is for pornography. So is 1 in 3 peer-to-peer downloads. Pornographic Web sites are visited three times more often than Google, Yahoo!, and MSN combined.

  What is less obvious, though, is that porn has been one of the pivotal industries propelling technology. In the 1980s, when VHS nudged out Betamax to become the videocassette standard, its victory was largely attributed to having the X-rated movie business on its side. Now, according to Investor’s Business Daily, video disc giants HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc are duking it out to be the standard format for next-generation video discs, and HD DVD’s alliance with the “adult industry” is likely to give it the edge.

  Today, porn-purveyors are some of the biggest customers of mainstream technology companies. “Sex” is the number one search term people plug into Google and Yahoo! While conservative organizations are quick to boycott firms that advertise in gay magazines, they never boycott the companies selling equipment and services to the porn industry. Why not? While these organizations have few gay members, they have a lot of members who look at porn.

  With all of the talk of the effects of porn, one has to wonder if we will see significant changes in actual relationships. Violence was once blamed on TV, but the studies went both ways. Now, as Internet porn has soared, so has Internet dating. Never before have people enjoyed so much access to meeting and dating real people, at the same time they can indulge more of their fantasies in private.