Vogue on the road: cars, fashion and the environment
London, 22nd May, London: Episode 11 of the new Auto Trader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, award-winning motoring journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
This episode explores why we need more crying in the office, redefining the “rising star” as well as the importance of the car industry meeting women where they are. We also hear more about how Vogue partners with the automotive industry including the joint BMW and Vogue internship and the Future Creators competition and the Forces for Change movement.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; Lark or owl? Circuit or circuits? Phone by the bed or phone downstairs?
Join Erin as she puts two absolute superstars in the driving seat to find out if working at Conde Nast is really like The Devil Wears Prada every day…
Podcast preview
Erin Baker:
“we weave in stuff about the car around the trip, things consumers care about like car play”
“In the US right now, women are the majority car buyer… they are buying the cars!”
“I adore the fact you just said it could be a woman in her 60s could be a rising star.”
Daveena Saranna:
“I had a big fat cry the other day… I just needed a release… and then I remember who I am and I stop crying. I cry all the time but I think it’s fine because I feel better… I am an emotional person, I used to think that’s so bad but I like it…I’m overly emotional, get with or get out.”
“These women are incredibly talented, we want to give them a moment to bask in the glory.”
“Young women in their 20s who are just having a bloody good go at making change.”
“The thing is with being a woman, you feel like you can never win. When you’re young people say you need experience, you don’t know what you don’t know and then you get into late 50s and 60s and they say you’re past the point now – you don’t know. It seems to be this mythical age that nobody can quite get to, being a woman, and it doesn’t exist”
“it’s pretty lonely, I look around and think yep that’s just me…it’s hard because it makes you feel like you have to go above and beyond”
“I just want to be a sponge and soak it all in so I can make informed choices”
“My dad said to me ‘the world is changing so fast and sometimes it feels like you don’t know how to keep up with that’”
Melanie Keyte:
“the power that women have financially has grown, the fact that women look for different things when they want to buy a car – we know that it’s not the same as men”
“We need [car] content that is regular and that is useful for the audience, we have content that is relevant but also we’ve grown a category that had almost no revenue against it to second biggest non endemic revenue at Conde Nast now.
“I knew instinctively at the time that is was right, that car brands, and wider than that, needed to talk to women in a different way…How do we make it powerful and how do we make it right, and with a Vogue lens.”
“Women are looking at the much more practical aspect of cars…there are so many moments within our lives when we need a car, what is that moment and how do we accommodate that moment?”
“we’re working with some of the most amazing people…”
“be passionate, chose your part of the market that you’re really passionate about”
“if it’s there and you manifest it and you’re working towards it, it will happen”
Auto Trader’s new podcast Women in the driving seat releases new episodes every Thursday.
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a divorced mother of two boys.
ABOUT DAVEENA SARARNA
Daveena is the EV Campaigns Manager at Green.TV Media, where she heads up Top Women in EV—making waves in both sustainability and media. With a career that includes Everything Electric, EZOO, Blenheim Palace, and the England Men's & Mixed Netball Association, she’s mastered the art of blending content, sustainability, and being a 25-year-old woman with a big passion for what she does. Outside of her day job, Daveena is juggling a third degree in Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Oxford (because, why not?) and trying (emphasis on trying) to be a netball pro. She’s the type to talk first, think later, read, run, and rekindle friendships at the most conveniently overdue times. In Daveena’s world, more is definitely more.
ABOUT MELANIE KEYTE:
Mel is a Commercial Director at Condé Nast, specializing in the automotive sector, where she’s spent the past six years driving strategic growth and partnerships. Before this, she managed fashion and brand collaborations at Grazia. spent time in Australia, working across Condé Nast’s portfolio of brands. Passionate about the intersection of media, luxury, and innovation, she thrives on building meaningful connections and delivering impactful commercial strategies.
Outside of work, she’s a single mum of two, always fighting for control of the playlist in the car. When not negotiating music choices, she runs around the house with incense, fully embracing the ritual.
ABOUT AUTO TRADER
Auto Trader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Auto Trader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Auto Trader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Auto Trader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Auto Trader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Auto Trader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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