One of our Best and Brightest (Dave) got a sneak peek at Caddy’s new ad campaign at one of those focus group thingies that marketing mavens love so much (when they’re not in Aruba):
The spot starts off in a control room with engineers hooked up to headsets and the soundtrack is like mission control getting ready to launch a . . . Saturn V? A garage door opens with dust and smoke explosions and the CTS comes out from the cloud blasting across a desert scene. The voice over says something like launch stage 1 ignition. Cue the next explosion over the car and the sport wagon emerges from the dust cloud to the voice over “stage 2 ignition” and so on for the crossover and coupe and stages 3 and 4. The spot ends with a shot of a Caddy grill and badge with the voiceover re-invented, re-launched, re-born (or something similar) all three words start with re-. The survey then asks a bunch of questions about whether this spot influenced your opinion of caddy, would you recommend, etc. Couple of thoughts – These are the same old cars, how is this a re launch? The “new GM” is still hawking the same old cars, how is that different? I gave the spot very low marks. To me it’s just more about brand image and not the cars.
Want more proof that Car And Driver Editor-in-Chief Eddie Alterman will believe anything?
Currently floating through the executive offices in Torino is a plan to fit the Dodge [Viper] with a V-10 version of the next-generation corporate V-8. This 90-degree engine would be modular top to bottom as well as by cylinder, with a flat-plane crank for the Ferrari V-8, a conventional cross-plane crank for the Maserati V-8, and pushrod-actuated valves for the balance-shafted Viper V-10.
Select media, Twitterati and fanboys are taking in the very best of GM hype today at a “tweet-but-don’t-photograph” event. But 140-character messages of hope, renewal and awesome are a bit thin to draw real conclusions from. Not that such semantics stop the faithful from trying. Apparently GM has an ATS concept, based on the mythical Alpha RWD platform. Because GM needs a “real” 3 series fighter in addition to an Epsilon II Buick fighter. Speaking of which, the Epsi II-based Riviera Concept is being teased, as is a Malibu refresh. Between the new concepts and Bob Lutz’s admission that GM’s interiors once resembled “solidified lava,” the twits become downright effusive. “I am bathing in future,” tweets one. But it’s the future of car shows, not showrooms (with the exception of some drooling over the Malibu refresh and it’s allegedly touch-friendly interior). And we already knew that GM can make pretty concepts.
Ford made $2.1 billion or whatever last quarter and they’re still wanting more concessions, more concessions.
UAW Local 249 President Jeff Wright to Fox 4 News Kansas City. By “whatever,” he actually meant “a $424 million pre-tax operating loss and $1 billion of cash burn, with $2.3 billion net income thanks only to one-time ‘special items.’” Or whatever. But Bloomberg reports that the UAW has “concession fatigue” and wants Ford to accept less favorable terms than GM and Chrysler. Hey, UAW, remember “bailout fatigue?” Taxpayers were told to shut up and keep the largesse flowing. Try following the example.
Toyota President has renounced his firm’s 2002 goal of attaining 15 percent global market share by around 2010. “Our president doesn’t feel comfortable upholding figures as our vision,” an anonymous Toyota source tells Automotive News [sub]. “It is not the Toyota way to aim for 15 percent or 10 percent.” Which makes sense, considering Toyota is predicting a nearly 13 percent drop in global sales in the fiscal year ending March 31. Indeed, AN’s source blames the market share goal for Toyota’s current overcapacity struggles. Which indicates that the big T may have recognized the role of number-chasing in GM’s demise. If nothing else, its executives certainly understand the importance of emerging markets in driving sales. Perhaps because Volkswagen is creeping up on Toyota’s market share on the back of its Chinese and Brazilian business. You gotta dance when the floor keeps getting hotter.
Until now, owning an Oldsmobile dealership was kind of like Ford’s logo-and-all, pre-meltdown mortgage: at the time it seemed bad, but history proved that the alternative was worse. After all, the Olds wind-down paid dealers up to $4 million to go away. Only now, several Oldsmobile dealers are getting a little taste of what GM’s less fortunate, bankruptcy-culled dealers have been put through. The Detroit News reports that “a handful” of Olds dealers are still owed annuity payments from the brandicide, and GM is filing those claims as “unsecured” debts of old, bad GM. Nobody likes being shorted in the neighborhood of $20K, but at least Olds dealers got something, right? Shouldn’t they count themselves lucky to be free of GM with any compensation at all? Not according to their lawyer . . .
Just as GM is prepping a green themed “230” Volt hype campaign, comes word from Automotive News [sub] that green is so 2003. “For all the talk about green vehicles,” intones the industry rag, “blue is the new color of choice to embody clean driving.” Did you think that Mercedes BlueTec and VW/Audi’s “AdBlue” names came from the blue tint of their diesel-emissions-treating urea fluids? Nope. “The color blue is associated with freshness, dynamism and lightness,” say VW flacks. And according to Hans Tempel, president of Mercedes-Benz Japan, “Blue perfectly encapsulates the cool, clear sky of a world unsullied by greenhouse gases.” Gagging yet? The best eco-chromatic marketing analysis awaits post-jump.
Flagship? I thought Caddy was going to offer an Lexus ES competitor. Turns out the sub-CTS is now on hold until 2011, after the XTS range-topper. And now we learn that the XTS will share underpinnings with the front wheel-drive Buick LaCrosse. Apparently, the new Cadillac XTS will be wider than the LaCrosse and tuned for a more luxurious ride. Whatever. Caddy is so screwed. The new, woefully underpowered, gearbox-challenged SRX is so bad Car and Driver‘s John Phillips was forced to ask “What else can we say to put a brighter face on this?” Same story here.
Folks are a bit confused by these mysterious ads. The giveaway is the music, which reveals the spot to be part of the Volt campaign, but what is 230? It would seem that 230 could well be the Volt’s EPA MPG rating, a number which will be useful only to GM’s relentless hype campaign. After all, no single portion of the EPA test cycle is longer than 11 miles, meaning EREVs get their own testing method (summarized after the jump). But as Ad Age puts it, “why run a teaser campaign for a car that doesn’t go on sale until next year — and one that’s been known about for some time? After all, the marketer has been beating the drum for the car for more than a year.” Because that’s the Volt Way. Meanwhile, 230 MPG? Really?
This e-mail just came over the e-transom from one of TTAC’s Best and Brightest:
This just in. Some dealers are getting their first CARS [a.k.a. Cash for Clunker] reimbursement checks from the government. And they’re short. The checks. Not the bureaucrats. See, if the dealer who submitted a request OWES ANY FEDERAL BACK TAXES, THAT IS DEDUCTED FROM THE DEALER REIMBURSEMENT AMOUNT. Yep. If BillyBob Motors owes the government fifteen-hundred, the dealer gets a check from Obama Money Bags for, um, carry the five, three thousand. If BillyBob owes more than forty-five hundred in federal taxes, he gets back . . . nada.
UPDATE: DOT Spokesman Ray Tyson says the IRS “may” withhold money from Cash for Clunkers dealers’ payments should the dealer owe the federal government back taxes. I’ve heard from a dealer to whom this has happened. I have amended the text of the e-mail above and removed the “Wild Ass Rumor” designation.
How did we miss facesofgm.com? I mean, it’s not like they have four (five?) other websites offering the public a look down the nationalized rabbit hole. But now that we’ve found it, well, way-hey! Clearly, New GM is playing the babe card; all three “faces” are female. Mel Fox by name, Mel Fox by, uh, nature. Needless to say, “the world of Mel” has been carefully sanitized by GM’s spinmeisters. Not so much Mel’s personal blog: theworldofallthingsmel. Here we get the idea that maybe Volt battery engineer Mel’s got mixed feelings about GM. “so i find myself asking… what can i do about this? [the root of the problems that we face in our nation is the mindset of humans, and the way people in power work to manipulate others, and the way that those being manipulated enable themselves to be manipulated again and again] the other question i ask is, how much of my career needs to involve invoking change vs. believing that what i’m working on is “good?” my point here is that perhaps it’s via the time donated to affiliations and public offerings that real change can be fostered as i don’t see too much within corporate america that truly facilitates change (fundamental change, that is).” On the other hand, Mel’s met the enemy and it is us!
At some point, maybe even soon, gm.ebay.com will be up and running. For some reason, the GM – eBay program—highly touted by CEO Fritz Henderson on the day of GM’s re-emergence from bankruptcy—only runs from August 11 (tomorrow) through September 8. So we should expect to see the main site go live at what, midnight? Thankfully, at least in some sense of that word, chevrolet.ebay.com (and the Buick, GMC and Pontiac-related url) is go. Ish. “Our Best Cars. Your Best Offer” doesn’t sound right to me. Shouldn’t that be OUR best offer? And what’s with Pontiac inclusion in the boondoggle? Anyway, what will we see when the curtain goes up?
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