TTAC pricing provider TrueDelta recently surveyed its consumer panel (join via our home page) on car dealers' customer satisfaction surveys. For anyone who's ever been "pre-prepared" for a post-sale or service survey by "helpful" dealer staff, the results confirm that the fix is in. Automotive News [AN sub] summarizes Mr. Karesh's findings: "Nearly half of the respondents in the TrueDelta poll said the dealership tried to influence their survey responses. More than one in four said they were overtly pressured by dealership employees to provide perfect scores. About one in eight admitted inflating their scores in response to such pressure." AN named three names as the worst offenders: BMW, Hyundai and Nissan. And get this: two percent of respondents said dealer staff asked to watch them complete the forms, asked to complete the forms for the customer and/or offered them a bribe for perfect score. How great is that? [NB: While this website has dealt with this subject before, it's great to see the truth hit the mainstream media.]

This Sunday's New York Times carried an article about McDonald's move upscale within the Eurozone. We're talking minimalist decor, caffè lattes, Internet access and "rental iPods." The changes' champion: Denis Hennequin, the French-born president of McDonald’s Europe. When challenged about the wisdom of aiming Le Big Mac (a.k.a. Mac Royale) at les BCBG (preppies), Hennequin said he "admires strong brands that reinvent themselves to become more fashionable and appealing, as the trendy car line Mini Cooper did." Excusez-moi. The Mini Cooper is not "a car line," it's now MINI, not Mini; and the original Mini was extinct before BMW resurrected (not reinvented) the brand. D'accord?

TTAC's writers and readers have been saying GM's biggest problem is a massive identity crisis. Now marketing guru Laura Ries is telling the RenCen bunch the same thing about Saturn at The Origin of Brands. Ries takes The General to task saying "Saturn doesn't have a product problem, Saturn doesn't have an advertising problem, Saturn has a ginormous branding problem. What is a Saturn? What does it look like? Who is it for? Who knows." With a few notable exceptions like Corvette, her comments could apply to any vehicle that has come out of Detroit for the last, oh… 40 years or so. Maybe Motown's marketing mavens will listen to one of their own. Look! There goes a pig-shaped flying car! 

Ford's $25m Man continues his "back to basics" pogram program at Ford. The Detroit News reports that Ford CEO Alan Mulally is considering resurrecting The Blue Oval's old ad tagline "Have you driven a Ford lately?" (Uh, have you listened to a Ford TV ad lately? At least one uses the phrase as a musical background.) Further confusing the somewhat of a non-issue, Big Al says he will or won't do it depending or not depending on his marketing experts' opinion, to a greater or lesser extent: "I certainly am bringing it back — I don't know if I can convince my colleagues that that will be our main marketing campaign." Auto Pacific analyst Jim Hall agrees with Mulally's assessment that he's the wrong guy to make that decision: "He's being paid too much to be working on an advertising campaign." Alternatively, you could say Big Al's being paid too much NOT to be working on an advertising campaign. 

JD Powers' mob have released yet another study detailing the personal predilections of American automotive consumers. Although this reveal has a headline to warm the hearts of the BOSE Mountain Boyz– "Branding Substantially Increases the Prices Consumers Are Will to to Pay for Automotive Premium Surround Sound Audio Systems"– the survey examines the full range of "emerging technologies." JD's researchers called 17k American consumers [at dinner time] and asked them which automotive gee-whizzery floats their e-boat, both before and after price considerations. If you suck money out of the equation, U.S. car buyers are up for run-flat tires (77 percent of those polled), two-stage smart airbags (75 percent), navigation systems (70 percent) and premium surround sound (67 percent). At the bottom of the list: rear seat entertainment (49 percent), lane departure warning systems (42 percent) and in-vehicle Internet (41 percent). Put financial considerations back on the table and all the stats drop by over a half, leaving sat nav the price-conscious feature seeker's friend A 28 percent approval rating may not seem like much, but it beats the Hell out of Congress' popularity. 

GM plans to spend at least $100m to promote the new Chevy Malibu. In hopes of making the model more competitive against Camry and Accord and less of a fleet queen, GM has given the Malibu an Opelized makeover. John Wolkonowicz reckons "This will be the nicest-looking mid-size car out there. It's simple, and it looks capable and looks aggressive." But the Global Insight analyst also warns, "If they think they are going to cannibalize a bunch of sales from Camry and Accord drivers, they are fooling themselves. You're not going to change those people's minds." Bloomberg.com describes the Malibu as "the latest Lutz-inspired model that GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner is counting on to help end a seven-year slide in U.S. sales and recover from more than $12 billion in losses in 2005 and 2006." Here's hoping that the Malibu will be more successful in that mission than the last automotive marines sent to storm the beaches: the Chevrolet Silverado, Saturn Aura, and Lambda crossovers (Buick Enclave, GMC Acadia and Saturn Outlook).

Robin Chase has the answer to America's car pooling conundrum: Facebook. BusinessWeek reports that the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based founder of Zipcar is introducing GoLoco.org, a social networking-based service within Facebook designed to match potential riders and drivers. For those who are worried about the prospect of sharing a car with a total stranger they only know from an on-line conversation, GoLoco.org promises that "checks and balances are in place to make the system as safe as possible." Beyond registering on Facebook, GoLoco users must record a voice clip that tells the planet what they ate for breakfast that day. How knowing a complete stranger's culinary preferences makes them more trustworthy isn't exactly clear, but hopefully GoLoco's name won't ring true for the creepy guy sharing your ride on his way to Spahn's movie ranch.

What's killing the minivan? The Detroit News thinks it's sliding doors. Citing the sliding rear doors as the primary feature that distinguishes minivans from crossovers, they point out minivan sales are down 22 percent so far this year, while crossover sales are on the rise. Automotive marketer Wes Brown sees the sliding door as epitomizing the "less-exciting realities of minivan ownership" for the poor schlubs who are "stuck in a rut of having a family." Interesting thing, though– the first generation Mazda MPV and Honda Odyssey had regular rear doors instead of sliders. They were less than stellar sellers. The second generation of both models had proper sliding doors, just as God intended. Who knows? If they'd stuck with the regular doors and changed their marketing strategy, they might have been credited with starting the crossover craze. Either that or disappeared.

Online Media Daily reports that Toyota's Sciontologists are building a "branded nightclub cum hangout spot" in the virtual world known as there.com. Programmers Metaversatility are creating a Scion-shaped party tower based on the carmaker's three currents models (xA, xB and tC). They hope to entice a big slice of there's [claimed] 1m virtual inhabitants into the Scion party zone. To increase cyber-footfall, Scion will advertise its virtual hang within there via "interactive kiosks" and billboards. If all that isn't weird enough– and we think it is– what's the bet Scion will pay inhabitants to "suggest" heading over to Club Scion? Will these virtual shills get virtual rewards or cold hard cash? Will they even be real? What's to stop there from using artificial intelligence avatars to drum-up business, or, more sinisterly, send fake visitors to the fake Club Scion to bolster audience numbers? Will Chevy hire people to create avatars to trash talk Scion and their hangout? How long before someone– real or fake– gets killed? Where's Phillip K. Dick when you need him?

Those zany marketing guys! Apparently euphemisms like "gently used" and "pre-loved" aren't enough to make us want to rush out and buy a used car. WebProNews brings us Chrysler's marketing mavens' latest attempt to obfuscate: "brand spankin' used." You can expect to see that phrase plastered all over used vehicle web sites like Cars.com and AutoTrader.com soon. Chrysler plans to list every certified pre-owned vehicle in every U.S. Chrysler, Dodge or Jeep dealer's inventory. That equates to over 20K vehicles listed each day. Why so many? Because Chrysler has a glut of used cars to unload since they dumped transferred all of their unsold 2006 models into their used car inventory in June. Banning over 600 dealers from Chrysler's used car auctions probably didn't help move the metal either.

CickZ is reporting that eyeball experts Nielsen Entertainment have declared in-game ads effective brand builders. The audience measurement mavens performed a double-blind study on 600 gamers, setting them loose on one of two versions of Electronic Arts' "Need for Speed Carbon." One version was ad-less; the other included billboards hawking automobiles, consumer packaged goods, quick service restaurants and technology tools (presumably not the people conducting the experiment). Nielsen claims the automotive ads generated a 69 percent increase in purchase consideration among likely car buyers. Translation? Unknown. But according to Alison Lange Engel, marketing director for the Massive in-game ad agency, "There is a halo effect [no pun intended] that being in the game makes them [the brands] cool." Well she would say that, wouldn't she? In fact, so would Electronic Arts, which would like nothing better than to become the in-game advertisers medium of choice. And Nielsen, who undoubtedly aspires to become the measurement king of the new ad genre, which Parks Associates estimates will reach $2b by 2012. Who are also in the video ad game. 

Mike Delahanty, senior manager of Dodge Motorsports, has assured NASCAR fans that the manufacturer won't pull their sponsorship from the ten race cars wearing Dodge Charger/Avenger decals. Delahanty seems confident that Cerberus will continue supporting the program, citing two NASCAR contracts that "went through the Cerberus review unscathed — no questions." He feels "we had a long-term commitment to the sport that was approved and a long-term commitment to one of our key teams that was approved. That gave us a message very early that going forward we weren't going to have to worry how to run our business." However, these statements were made before Monday's announcement stabbing Tom Lasorda in the back naming Robert Nardelli as CEO. Now that Toyota's in NASCAR, Delahanty and the two Dodge racing teams may want to give Hyundai or Honda a ring.

Digital Signage Today reports that Advance Auto Parts' in-store TV network has gone dark. Advance launched their three channel digital network eight years ago. The smorgasboard of auto-related content– both customer how-to and employee training– expanded to all of the auto parts giant's 3150 locations. Management shut down the system earlier this week as part of a cost-cutting and restructuring campaign led by acting CEO John C. Brouillard (formerly CEO of the H.E. Butt supermarket chain). Digital Signage mourned the passing of one of America's largest and longest running retail media networks by pointing-out that ad-supported in-store digital signage is a "tough nut to crack" that ain't yet cracked.  

If you dig corporate logos shadow-embossed on your TV shows, you'll love the Taurus Trays. SkyMedia, Ford's latest media partner, has created a folding tray table that not only holds your complimentary bag of peanuts; it pimps the "new" Ford Taurus to you and the two strangers you're stuck with for the next three hours. FoMoCo PR reports that The Taurus Trays even offer an "interactive game" when the Skymall catalog gets tiresome. Whether or not you think this brand of promo-tainment offers "entertaining content on seat-back tray tables" you'll have a chance to experience the Taurus Trays until September. Just don't forget to say "buh-bye" when you disembark.