Hummer Brand Has Different Meanings For Owners And Pedestrians

Pitying the Hummer owner who must endure gas-price increases is like feeling sorry for the McMansion resident with skyrocketing property taxes. But as Rob Walker notes in the New York Times, gas-guzzler drivers are people, too.

And if you’re one of these people – as Walker cites in a new report by the Journal of Consumer Research that explores “consumer moralism” – you’re probably justifying your Hummer purchase as a (manly) display of your “American exceptionalism, rugged individualism, love of the frontier, community and freedom.” Even if your heaviest cargo is the weekly haul from Costco.

What you own – that is, what brands you wear, carry, or drive – determines how people perceive you, as much as your hairstyle or your accent or whether you hate “Family Guy.” If you ever had to convince your mom that a pair of jeans from Sears wasn't “just like” the designer denim the cool kids were wearing, you already knew that.

But spotting a Hummer on the road elicits a visceral reaction – in some cases, very visceral – more often than most other brands. (It probably doesn’t help that the vehicle sticks out in a car-crowd like a sore tank.)

Three years ago, The Observer claimed that the iPod was "losing its cool” – but there have been no widespread reports of iPod fans sheepishly painting over their white headphones. The term “drives a Hummer” will likely remain a pejorative in some circles, even if a controversial study concluded that, over the long haul, a Hummer might be a better option than a Prius after all.

Of course, Hummer could finally roll out that hyped hybrid model, but by then, the brand will be owned by the China’s Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company, and you’ll no longer be driving the imposing, petrol-gorging devil from Detroit, but a boxy, still-not-great-for-the-environment chunk from Chengdu.

Piloting a Chinese Hummer might no longer get your American red blood flowing, but you can take solace in that your Hummer will still be on the list of most sexually suggestive car names. And few things increase your personal brand like saying, “I drive a Hummer.”