The Keystone BIG Show, an automotive aftermarket trade show arguably second only to the SEMA Show in importance, will be held Friday, March 5th, and Saturday, March 6th, at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. The in-person show will be followed March 15-19 by a virtual event.
Infiniti’s wanderlust has taken the QX80 to other faraway locations, but none quite as exotic as Privolzhskoe, Tver Oblast, Russia, to go glamping in Villi Ulei’s geodesic domes.
In what’s termed a comfort zone for climatic conditions in Russia, temperatures range from 9-degrees Fahrenheit in the winter, to a high of 66-degrees in the summer. As you can see, snowfall is abundant in the region, from a low of about 16 inches, to almost 32 inches, and it spans anywhere from four to five months of the year. Home to 1.35 million Russians, 30% of whom are Russian Orthodox, it might seem like a great place to go if it were summer at the Boishoe Zavidovo, when Nashestvie, the largest Russian rock festival, is being held.
Actor Will Farrell describes Norway’s EV leadership in one of the more amusing Super Bowl commercials, and how General Motors is looking to change all that here at home.
Xperi’s DTS AutoStage is the next evolution in multimedia, if you turn on the radio while starting your car like millions of others do worldwide.
Kia revealed its new logo and brand slogan while you were asleep last night, signifying the Korean automaker’s ambitions to become a leader in the industry by revamping nearly all facets of its business.
BMW videos on YouTube accessed by more than one million subscribers have earned the German automaker a coveted Golden Button Award.
Dick DeLoach, a 44-year automotive industry journalist, who was instrumental at Lowrider magazine and many other automotive enthusiast publications, died on November 9, 2020, following complications from COVID-19. He had been admitted to Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Ontario on October 25th.
Electronic Arts said it had reached an agreement to buy Codemasters in a deal worth $1.2 billion, beating rival video games maker Take-Two Interactive Software to the finish line for the British company.
The ninth annual Looking Further with Ford Trends Report has us asking if consumers are as resilient amid the pandemic as Ford claims. The study expresses how COVID-19 has wrought economic, political, and emotional woes, testing the limits of individuals, families, healthcare systems, and society. Focusing on global trends to understand shifting consumer behaviors, it measures how far we’ve come, and where we’re going. This year, the OEM also examined how resilient people are.
“COVID-19 has changed us – but to what degree?” said Sheryl Connelly, Ford’s global consumer trends and futuring manager.
Lisa Materazzo has been appointed group vice president, Toyota Marketing, replacing Ed Laukes, who is retiring after 32 years with the automaker. Materazzo, who currently serves as vice president of Lexus marketing, will run the entire gamut of Toyota division market planning, advertising, merchandising, sales promotions, incentives, NASCAR and motorsports, and all social and digital media. According to Statista, in 2019 Toyota spent $1.51 billion on advertising alone, behind General Motors and Ford.
Environmental activist Jamie Henn, and his firm, Fossil Free Media, are attacking advertising and PR agencies that work on oil industry accounts. Their initiative, Clean Creatives, is designed to shame some of the world’s largest PR and ad agencies in hopes that they will resign.
“We want to get PR and ad agencies to stop working with the oil industry because they are spreading misinformation about climate change and lobbying action to address the crisis,” said Henn. “Our reliance on fossil fuels is driving global warming which will have serious impacts on our environment, health, and economy.”
Ford has hired Suzy Deering as global chief marketing officer to help execute its plan to unlock customer and company value. Deering will join Ford as head of Global Marketing on January 4, 2021, from worldwide and North America CMO at eBay for five-plus years.
Deering will succeed Joy Falotico as Ford CMO. The company previously announced that Falotico, who has been managing both marketing and the Lincoln brand for the past three years, will be dedicated solely to her role as president of the Lincoln Motor Company, Ford’s strategically important and growing luxury vehicle brand.
In 1987, Ford Motor Company published a game for the long-defunct disk operating system universally known as “DOS.” In reality, the software was less of a game and more of a digital showroom that allowed you to demo the company’s 1988 lineup from the comfort of your personal computer. As marketing materials go, you couldn’t have done much better than this for the era, and now it’s a top-rate piece of automotive nostalgia.
Ford Simulator was essentially the car-based equivalent to the CDs distributed by America Online, but before such a thing even existed. The software just had a way of casually showing up and finding its way into your computer room. This was an era when promotional materials were physical and technology had reached a point where the industry could experiment a little.
Tragically, the internet has eliminated this phenomenon like a dog with rabies. You don’t see much physical media at automotive trade shows anymore and any games that include branded models come through publishers that are able to work out a deal with automakers.
However, for almost 10 years, Ford produced a series of computer programs many of us remember fondly — despite being objectively terrible to play. Read More >
Oh, Elon. Elon, Elon, Elon.
As you, the reader, no doubt know, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been blasting the media – and financial analysts – for being critical of his company and/or its products. He was too annoyed to even answer questions from analysts during one recent earnings call – turning attention instead to a YouTube user who happens to be a Tesla investor and apparent fanboy. Musk gave him the floor for over 20 minutes.
Musk’s meltdown has continued since. Last week he stirred up shit on Twitter by suggesting that the media is lying and that he’ll create a media-rating service. He also may or may not have blown an anti-Semitic dog whistle (I don’t think that was his intent, but I can see why it was taken that way – especially given some of the nasty stuff that’s taken place on Twitter since, oh, lo about mid-2015 or so) in the process.
That’s just the short version.
Recent Comments