Editor’s Note: The following is an editorial written by EarthCruiser Overland Vehicles CIO & Founder, Lance Gillies.
Car manufacturers have done this better than anyone, and executed well for a very long time – it’s where we pinched the idea from.
To get potential customers to understand what an EarthCruiser was, we needed to show them what made it different. Coming from the off-road world, we had access to a 4×4 test facility put together by one of our local 4×4 clubs; it was ideal.
We had a pool of educated potential customers looking for a product that fit their needs. I guess that’s what marketing calls “early adopters,” but that was back in 2008 in Australia, and this is 2026 in America.
Our first potential customers who were attracted to overland travel had already been outside, travelled in the bush or on the water and some came from our own off-road competition circles. It was not a case of: “Jeez, these EarthCruisers are the best thing since canned beer.” It is nowhere near that simple. The oohs and the ahs will not keep a factory running.
The vehicle and the company we were building had to answer a simple question: “Is this vehicle going to work for me?” The way to test that is to see if these people understand not just how to build it, but why they built it.
Then, can their company do it consistently? Can they train others? Are they as serious about this as I am? It has nothing to do with selling; it is about proving. If that unspoken question is not answered to the potential customer’s satisfaction, game over. One chance, and that’s it.
The overland shows, Overland Expo in particular, have to their credit done a terrific job of getting vehicles off the stands and onto a track — understandably a managed experience, as one would expect. There should be no surprises in front of a crowd carrying cameras in arms reach of the internet.
As more manufacturers, large and small, take advantage of these opportunities, I have to wonder: are they selling, or are they educating? Do they actually know?
Thirty-odd years ago, “overlander” was a word for camel drivers. Now it is thrown around on everything from trucks to coffee cups. Sadly, I am not kidding. It is becoming almost a catchphrase, and a tagline does not prove a thing.
For want of a better term — and I certainly do not mean any disrespect, as mainstream RV reviewers and influencers take a deeper look into the overland market for their followers, what are they looking for? What are their questions? What is it their people really want to know?
Is it listening for every squeak, rattle, and bang, or is it about how does it make you feel? Can you, or would you even want to, park it at a tiny little car park at the grocery shop? How about at night in the rain? Does the water capacity match the people capacity for a few weeks in the desert?
These are, I think, wonderful times as the overlanding market grows and attracts more interest and attention from large, established manufacturers. Their ability to produce at scale, distribute and service, backed by sales and marketing budgets that are the absolute dreams of small builders, is impressive. They too have adapted to a new way of presenting products to what, for some, is a completely new audience and consumer base.
The tricky question is this: there is a reason enough traditional RV purchasers want something different for this to matter at all, and it wasn’t because they all want to cross the Sahara Desert. The customer looked elsewhere for a reason. They wanted something different for a reason.
In the early days in Australia, our customers wanted to do all the things they did in their 4×4 Toyota LandCruiser or Nissan Patrol, but take their better half with them so everyone could be comfortable and see the world. It had nothing to do with how fancy or flashy it was.
They knew fancy and flash were liabilities, not attributes. I don’t think the attraction of endless dusty roads and remote beaches, although romantic, holds enough allure for traditional RV sales and marketing to generate the volume needed to support mass manufacturing investment.
For our early customers around the world, and especially in the United States and Australia, that is exactly what they wanted out of this type of product. But is that what makes it scalable?
There is something else drawing scaled manufacturing to this growing group of prospective customers. After all, what is the point of spending what can be a lot of money on a truck and equipment to cross the Sahara Desert if you really are never going to go?
No, there is more to it than that — a lot more.
From my experience taking hundreds of potential customers, colleagues, journalists, and industry professionals on off-road courses, it comes down to this: Don’t tell me how good the truck is.
Show me your people know the difference between how and why.
If this product performs well, you are giving me confidence not just in this product, but in your entire organisation.
That’s gold.
How well do all these different components play nice together, and does the person representing this machine understand why and what is going to matter to me?
Do they understand I am not judging the truck — it is the least of it. I am asking the age-old, essential question: Do you see me? Do I matter? I am a Recreational Vehicle customer; I am here for something better, something different.
Are you listening?
