Introducing: The Urban DINK

The automotive business is a strange place sometimes. One of the main focuses of this blog is to break down all the marketing terminology and advertising double speak so car shoppers can get the straight story about the new car market. One of the oddest terms we hear over and over when listening to PR and marketing folk is “DINK” — Dual Income, No Kids — to describe an ideal car buyer who is married, or otherwise seriously committed, with no children.

You may never hear this term during your day-to-day car shopping but believe me, the car companies spend a lot of time thinking about DINKs. Supposedly, DINKs spend more on car purchases and there are a lot of DINKs out there, including me. 

So, to complement our ongoing Suburban Dad posts, I’ll be blogging each week as The Urban DINK as I look at new models that come into the Cars.com fleet for reviews. Cars.com’s Expert Reviews are purposely general, but there are certain car models that appeal to one group more than another, and that’s why we’re continuing to explore these subsets. That way, we can offer comments and discoveries that are of particular interest to those groups, like suburban parents and city-dwelling DINKs.

During the course of the series we have to be aware that a DINK can become a DEWK — Dual Employed, With Kids — at any time and, believe it or not, the auto companies think that way as well. Check out the Mercury ad below for an example of DINK marketing in practice. Obviously the picture of the well polished couple above is not me and the missus.

One more thing … my better DINK half and I are in the market for a new car and we’ll be scrutinizing some more than others as we look to replace our 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee. This is one of those rare times when an automotive journalist will actually put his money where his mouth is, and take his own advice when buying a new car.

We’ll kick off the series with a look at the new 2007 Acura RDX later this week.