Quote of the Day: Lesser Antilles Edition
Remember the “legendary” story about a freshly-minted GM Car Czar peeking under a tarp (the non-financial sort) and saying, “This isn’t the new Corvette!” The Kool-Aid drinkers were awestruck; Bob Lutz was serving notice that GM design wasn’t good enough! In fact, as we pointed out, it wasn’t the new Corvette; Maximum Bob was simply showing his colleagues that he knew the difference between a Corvette and a non-Corvette. Well, here we go again, only this time MB is GM’s Marketing Czar and it’s a reviled Buick ad. Set-up: MB in the FastLane: “That Buick commercial tested very well, which is not the same as saying that it’s an effective ad. I think you will very quickly see a drastic change in the tone and content of our advertising. And if you don’t, it will mean that i have failed.” AdAge: “GM’s new marketing top gun, Bob Lutz, met with the automaker’s brand teams on July 14, spent 10 to 20 minutes critiquing the work for each brand and, in the words of someone in the know, ‘crapped all over the advertising.’ Then he jetted off to the Caribbean island of Montserrat on holiday, leaving some scared individuals in his wake.” Taxpayers/shareholders included.
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Am I really alone in thinking that the (new) Buick commercial really isn't so bad? Yeah, OK, I like the music it's set to, but aside from that, it provides enough teasers about Buick that it should at least raise a few eyebrows of people who would have otherwise never considered a Buick. And that's where you have to start, as you really can't totally change people's perceptions of the brand in a single 30-second segment. With appropriate follow-up commercials, this could work -- in my opinion.
This is my favorite GM ad - for Holden in the early 1970's: You might have seen it before, but I think we need more ads like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Ic3RqPIJo I don't know what those things mean together, but check out the models! They're REAL people. thanks, Andrew
Buicks?! We don't need no steenking Buicks!
@vanderaj: This is my favorite GM ad - for Holden in the early 1970’s During this same time period in the U.S., GM did one almost EXACTLY like this...except instead of "football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars" it was, "baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet."