As assembly plants cautiously fire up and buyers slowly return to the new vehicle market in North America, automakers have their fingers crossed, hoping that an increase in demand from frightened first-time buyers will offset lost sales from both the newly jobless and hard-hit rental agencies.
Data out of Europe and China seems to suggest the fright factor is real, but just how much (and for how long) automakers can depend on it really depends on the virus itself. (Read More…)
The tedium of self-isolation reached depraved new depths this past weekend, as your author, finding himself all alone with nothing to do, took advantage of the government-imposed privacy to indulge in a shameful solo act. An occurrence that was sadly all too common in his teenage years.
That’s right — with the lights turned low and blinds drawn, yours truly engaged in something he’s not too proud of, and wouldn’t normally divulge to any other living soul. He watched a truly terrible movie… and didn’t turn it off.
No, not “so bad it was good,” nothing like that. This thing was a complete stinker — a colossal turdfest that only kept this writer’s interest because, among other things, it happened to be a commercial for General Motors. (Read More…)
Did Ford rip off someone else’s playlist? The answer to this question will emerge from a courtroom, now that the owner of a vast digital music catalog has filed a lawsuit against the automaker.
The copyright infringement suit, filed late last week, accuses Ford of improperly using 54 songs in its marketing materials over the span of several years. (Read More…)
Far be it for us to don the cloak of an uptight, finger-wagging, very online scold. That’s the job of other outlets, at least when their staff finish fantasizing about authoritarian purges on social media.
With that in mind, BMW’s electrified “i” sub-brand earns a measure of understanding from us that it might not receive from others. Still… this is truly a ham-fisted attempt at combining an important social message with product marketing. (Read More…)
BMW is updating its logo for the modern era. The old glossy emblem with the dated lighting effects the company has leaned upon for the last 23 years will be replaced with a new transparent image that nixes the black background entirely while maintaining the lettering and central blue-and-white roundel. You’ve probably already seen it on the Concept i4, or are perhaps familiar with its monochrome cousin intended to help distinguish the brand’s flagship models.
The manufacturer has said the new logo aims to establish a new corporate identity for online and offline communication purposes, so it could be reserved for press materials and advertising. Yet it has appeared on one automobile already, indicating the brand may eventually have bins of them at the end of every assembly line. Is it a fashion faux pas or the perfect reimagining of the brand’s longstanding iconography? (Read More…)
As we told you last week, the rampaging coronavirus outbreak and subsequent restrictions on movement has forced Chinese automakers to use technology in new ways. With sales plunging and millions barred indoors, auto giant Geely turned to online retailing, allowing customers to order and configure cars from home. The automaker even allowed for test drives to take place at the buyer’s residence.
One aspect of the epidemic was the cancellation of a splashy February 14th sales launch for the new Icon small crossover, which hit the market this week. The event may have been scrubbed, but Geely still found a way to use the virus to its advantage. (Read More…)
Automakers go to great pains to show off their vehicles in the best possible light. Via the deft touch of their respective marketing teams, ordinary machines suddenly grow the ability to do the impossible: getting the hopelessly nerdy guy his dream girl, soothing inconsolable babies, and performing feats of strength that would leave even Frank aghast.
In official pictures and film, the worst fate to befall a vehicle is normally an artistic splattering of mud around the wheel wells. Perfection is always a car wash away.
Not so in the “ad” just released by Jaguar Land Rover, which piggybacks on the exploits of a filmmaking team and gives them all the marketing support they ask for in return. Despite JLR using a Bond movie to its benefit, it’s good to see a vehicle being put to its full potential in a commercial — and sustaining damage in the process. It harkens back to those old Volvo ads of yore, in which abuse factors heavily. (Read More…)
The answer, mouthed silently by many of our readers, is surely, “No, absolutely not.”
And yet the door is not closed on the prospect of a wagon variant of the Volkswagen Arteon — a high-end liftback sedan that landed with a barely audible thump in North America last year. Comments made at the Chicago Auto Show reveal this as a possibility, and spy photos that cropped up today make that possibility even more appealing.
What isn’t yet known is whether the pool of potential buyers could fit into a Volkswagen Arteon. (Read More…)
The year was 1981, and the frazzled mother of yours truly found herself behind the wheel more than usual. This writer was apparently screaming and bawling like a 21st century voter, and the only way to get him to conk out was to bundle him into an increasingly corroded Plymouth Volare and hit the lonely backroads of rural Canada, unsure of whether that Slant Six would stall at the next four-way stop.
It’s a situation most new parents find themselves in — and, save adoption, it’s the last legal resort to getting a screaming child to knock it off, especially now that most food safety agencies don’t allow alcohol-filled gripe water. As powertrains go electric, however, the driving experience is beginning to change.
Worried that these child-lulling drives might prove fruitless in a model like the Leaf, Nissan has recorded an EP to accompany the trip. I’m listening to it now. (Read More…)
The man behind a Chevrolet ad campaign that spawned a particularly hilarious, long-running spoof almost from day one has left the company, Automotive News reports.
Chevrolet ad chief Paul Edwards took a walk Thursday, with General Motors replacing the brand’s U.S. marketing VP with Steve Majoros, currently the bowtie’s director of cars and crossovers marketing. (Read More…)
Emojis have taken on a bizarre level of importance within the automotive industry. Last October, Jeep complained about how the symbol used for its name on iOS devices didn’t accurately represent the brand — and it was only a few months earlier that Ford was busy teasing the pickup emoji it had pending with the Unicode Consortium. There’s marketing potential here, and everyone wants to see it work to their benefit.
While Jeep convinced Apple to disassociate the Jeep name from the generic crossover emoji, Ford’s progress has been harder to measure. The automaker’s product communications lead, Mike Levine, tweeted the symbol’s arrival late last week, but it didn’t much resemble the emoji Ford submitted. People noticed. Instead of a simplified F-Series in blue, the Unicode Consortium opted for a red truck straight out of a children’s book.
It also didn’t escape the notice of General Motors, which quickly decided to use the opportunity to kick Ford while it was down. (Read More…)
Yesterday was, in addition to being an excellent palindrome, a pretty big day for sports. With untold million being thrown around by companies vying for attentive eyeballs, our own Chris Tonn offered a roundup of the various and sundry Super Bowl cars ads, leaving us with one questions: what was your fave?
Time to celebrate America, undiagnosed head trauma, and the greatest marketing teams in all the land on Sunday night with the fifty-fourth chapter of The Big Game.
It’s an excuse to eat and drink to excess — but many people don’t need an excuse. More, it’s the one time per year where most people won’t be waiting for commercial breaks to get up and pee, since the commercials are often the best part of the night.
As I have no rooting interest in the game — I’m from Ohio, which means the only truly professional team here isn’t eligible since it plays in the NCAA, and my Wisconsin roots are disappointed in the Packers — you know I’ll be hitting pause on the DVR to re-watch the greatest short films trying to sell me something. And I’ll have my laptop at the ready, posting new commercials as they appear.
This may come as less than exciting news, given that we’ve already seen properly leaked 2021 Cadillac Escalade images already. “Properly” meaning someone sneaked their phone out and fired off a couple of bad pics in a secure area.
That said, the next-generation Escalade has shown its face in an official image ahead of next week’s big reveal. By all accounts, it will be a star-studded affair. The amount of cosmetic surgery bestowed upon the range-topping SUV will surely put attendees at ease. (Read More…)
With General Motors razzing Ford back in 2015 for optioning an aluminum truck bed to save weight, thus improving fuel economy, it couldn’t pull off a similar move without a sea of mouths wailing warnings of hypocrisy. GM has been playing catch-up with the Blue Oval’s full-size pickup since forever, always framing the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado as the more robust choice. The company even launched an advertising campaign to prove its steel truck bed was the tougher option.
When the General’s full-sized trucks underwent a weight-loss program of their own, it was decided anything that opened or closed should be aluminum while the bed absolutely had to stay high-strength steel. Otherwise, it would be guilty of the same mistakes it accused Ford of. Despite throwing shade at Ford’s claimed lack of sturdiness for over a decade, the aluminum-sucks angle has been reeled back immensely over the last couple of years. GM even attempted to wipe all evidence of a comparative rock-drop test from the internet, possibly because it’s finally decided to embrace aluminum itself.
However, there’s already an alternative to the high-strength steel GM currently offers — the CarbonPro bed available on the GMC Sierra Denali and AT4 — and the manufacturer has prepared another stunt show to test its mettle. (Read More…)
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