Big shows are really two shows. The first is the corporate-reveal-new-model-media-dog-and-pony-shrimpfest. Nissan and others made business decisions to pull out of Detroit …fair enough.

The other show the public days where it’s basically a huge showroom under one roof of all most of the brands for sale in the US.

That’s a week+ of the unwashed masses pawing the sheetmetal. The corporate suits are long gone. This is the dealer part of the show.

Psarhjinian nailed it in that the kibosh must be a corporate control thing. (“Ya know… our crazy dealers… you never know what they’re going to do or say”.)

Control.

The Chicago operation will have corporate involvement, the Detroit one would not. Nissan doesn’t want a Nissan-branded, but not Nissan-run, presence at Detroit, and since they won’t spend the money, they won’t get a say.

Another factor is that the car companies are going to show off how coarse their hair shirts are. They’re terrified of news articles about wining and dining reporters or any perceived extravagance at the NAIAS. NAIAS is still the 800 lb gorilla of North American car shows. This year there are 5500 journalists in Detroit. Chicago might get 1/4 of that. So Detroit’s under a microscope. I think Nissan alluded to all this with “the current economic conditions will impact the shows’ marketing effectiveness.” In other words, show attendees and media will see the display as a waste of money.

Maybe we’ve reached the point where any advertising and promotion by car companies has some kind of backlash. A brave new world where traditional marketing is no longer effective.

OK, but why arm-twist the dealers there into not participating? I understand Nissan proper skipping Detroit, but telling their supposedly independent dealers not to … what gives?

The Detroit show doesn’t give the bang for the buck that Chicago would.