Ad Age only lists GM and Chrysler’s ad spend for all of ’08, before the ailing American automakers bellied-up to the federal bailout buffet. But the writing’s on the wall for a number of media who depend on the two teat sucklers for ad cash. The carmakers’ $3B ’08 combined ad spend has already been slashed. When Chrysler and GM go Tango Uniform, well, there’s a black hole out there with their name on it. At risk ’08 ad bucks: Car and Driver ($20.6M from GM), Automobile ($15.4M from GM), Motor Trend ($6.1M from Chrysler). If you’re wondering why the buff books’ reviewers treat GM and Chrysler products with kid gloves, I’ve just shown you the money. And here’s a pdf charting the ch-ch-ch-changes from 2007 to 2008, in terms of the two automakers’ percentage of the buff books’ total ad take [NB: ’07 was a very good year, for small town dealers, with perfume in their hair, until they came undone.] Steve Parr, president of Source Interlink Media, is non-plussed, allegedly.
“We have a wide and diverse customer base,” Parr pronounced. “It is also clear that many of the great GM brands will continue to exist, and we have no reason to expect that they will not continue to advertise with us.” No reason not to not agree, Steve.
And now, we present the buff books’ rendition of WHERE MY NSFWing BAILOUT?
The silver lining many in media are hoping for is a share of spending for a proposed marketing campaign from the Obama administration to reassure consumers if one or both of the automakers declares bankruptcy.
B-b-b-but . . .
So far, the administration hasn’t spoken about launching an incentive-based campaign that could spark consumer interest and purchase activity. But President Barack Obama did discuss a public-relations campaign the Internal Revenue Service was launching to alert consumers to a new tax benefit for auto purchases made before the end of the year. But a full-scale ad campaign, say, built around tax breaks for people who buy fuel-efficient vehicles hasn’t been mentioned.
Meanwhile, the automakers’ ad agencies have already reserved their spot in the ad space/time continuum, worth billions. All of which is about to become an entry on someone’s liability sheet. Of course, that would be federally-funded Chrysler and GM. NOT the ad agencies.
“There is what we call sequential liability” — the concept that the client, not the media agency, in the end is responsible for media purchases — “so we believe that our exposure is limited [claimed Publicis Chairman-CEO Maurice Levy]. The final client for the media is General Motors.”
How about a number on that, you know, as the taxpayer is on the hook here?
Ad Age asked GM how much liability it has for media buys and agency fees, including whether media owners, production companies and agencies have sequential liability in their contracts. A GM spokeswoman said, “We are not commenting on this level of detail at this time.”
If they want in on “an incentive-based campaign that could spark consumer interest and purchase activity,” they’d best get out and land themselves a sales representative position at a GM dealer.
Excellent find. So Motor Trend receives 16% of its ad dollars from GM, and Automobile Magazine gets 21%?!
I had wondered why the mags were so quiet about the industry death watch, instead focusing on 0-60 times and iPod connections. Now I know the sad truth about cars… again – thanks.
Aren’t GM and Chrysler getting a lot of media exposure right now? And we’re paying them for it! Sure, it’s not all about how great their products are, but doesn’t the old adage say “any publicity is good publicity”? Oh well.
MT gets the largest share, with $27.6m heading its way from GM.
How about we sum the two?
MT: $33.7m, 19.8% (angling for COTY?)
C&D: $23.2m, 11.4%
Automobile: $15.4m, 21.1% (GM only)
R&T: $14.0m, 11.1%
So, why so much love between GM and Automobile? I’m having a hard time seeing Automobile readers as GM’s target market.
I stopped reading the buff books a while ago, but there seemed to have been a period in the nineties when they took off the kid gloves with respect the American marques, and only put them back on again in or around 2003.
Was I imagining this? Or were the cars so bad (or the advertising dollars perhaps thinner?) that they couldn’t ignore them?
“So Motor Trend receives 16% of its ad dollars from GM, and Automobile Magazine gets 21%?!”
Those are hardly surprising numbers given that GM had about 23% market share in the US last year. Considering how many models GM spread those sales over, the MT number in particular looks a little soft.
The bigger question for the buff books is whether they are worth advertising in at all for mainstream vehicles. The idea is that readers of buff books are influencers who affect the purchases of a wide circle of friends and acquaintances around them. I’m not sure that is as true today as it was twenty years ago.
I hope Road & Track makes it.
They can be a bit long winded at times and have something of a Euro-bias but I still enjoy their reviews. You can get a good apples to apples comparison of the performance of cars.
“So, why so much love between GM and Automobile? I’m having a hard time seeing Automobile readers as GM’s target market.”
If you want to know why just pick up a copy of the Automobile mag that was just deliverd to my house. Jean Jennings’ column discusses the Lutz tenure by way of anecdotes that serve only to illustrate that the author is personal friends with the Lutz family. Each, “he flew a copter to our house for a light lunch,” story is prefaced by an example of Lutz calling Jean to scream at her for unfavorable coverage (a really unfortunate, and transparent, ploy to maintain some semblance of credibility and independence). This is no different from the McCain BBQ dust-up which reporters were rightly criticized for attending (I don’t recall them ever owning up to any fault in that either).
I actually don’t think Automobile has opinions for sale (I would cancel the subscription), but I do think that how those PR dollars get spent has a lot more to do with personal connections and influence than we might consider proper or wise (see NASCAR for further examples). Keeping the editorials from being too industry oriented or contemptuously critical (heeello TTAC) has got the be the side effect though, even if a few get let through for journalism’s sake. There’s also always the possibility that they spend so heavily in these venues as a preemptive threat against that kind of coverage. It’s one thing to not ever get $21M, it’s quite another to lose it.
Here’s a fun excercise:
Try to go a whole day without using the term “Teat” or “Buffet” to describe the bailouts!
I also hope Road & Track makes it. They always seemed to be the most credible.
BTW, it’s just plain cruel to illustrate this articles with a J-body.
tedward:
I had a subscription to Automobile that I immediately cancelled when I saw Jean Jennings to commercials for Jeep. (There was a section on Automobile’s website for Jeep, and it had videos of Jean pimping all of Jeep’s models. The Compass one was the most painful)
I currently have a subscription for Car and Driver. After getting ahold of a few 1999 issues of Car and Driver, I learned just how far they have fallen in the last decade. The 1999 issues have a lot more insightful reviews and comparisons, and Brock Yates’ editorials were just genius. Now I never read the editorials and I can’t help but notice how ads have taken over. It has come to the point that the pages are half ad, half review. After getting their piss-poor December issue last year, and noticing how behind the times it was (It was all about surviving the fuel crisis, even though gas had already fallen under $2.00 again), I wasn’t going to renew my subscription. So I was slightly disgruntled when my mom renewed it for me as a Christmas present. Now I have to put up with them for another year!
But yeah, in a nutshell, Car and Driver (And just about all of the buff books) have jumped the shark. It seems to be nothing more than just sucking up to advertisers now.
I blame Obama.
And Bush and a Clinton or two and toss in FDR just to be safe and Howard Taft assuredly had a hand in this affair at some point.