QOTD: Do Auto Show Media Days Matter to the Consumer?

Amid the Chicago Auto Show hoopla last week came reports that Mercedes-Benz was considering dropping out of next year’s Detroit Auto Show, news that has since been confirmed. I was invited to a dinner with journalists by an OEM during the Chicago show, and while eating, the PR guy posed a question – “Does the auto show still matter to you guys?”

Immediately, all in attendance agreed that the shows are as important as ever to consumers and the dealers who sell them cars. Which makes sense – the shows are usually run by dealer associations, with the intent of generating sales leads.

For us in the media, though, it’s been an open question. Thanks to changes in technology and how both journalists and PR departments do their jobs, many journalists now find it easier (and cheaper) to cover the shows from home (especially if they snagged embargoed material in advance).

Not to mention that automakers are increasingly spending time and money on off-site reveals (granted, those reveals are still based around the dates of the auto show press days, since the OEMs know journalists will be in town) and sometimes unveiling vehicles well outside of show dates. Ford unveiled the latest Mustang during the public days of last year’s Detroit show, and GMC is doing a major event for the 2019 Sierra in Detroit in a couple of weeks, instead of unveiling it at an auto show.

Auto show media days still hold value for the media, in my opinion. They’re useful for networking, gathering info on background, listening for rumors, photography, and video work, among other things. You’ll notice, though, that with exception of photo and video, none of those things really have a lot to do with “breaking news.”

What say you, dear reader? Are you combing TTAC and our competitors’ sites for info during each press day? Does what happen during the media days affect your decision to go to a show? Do the unveilings influence your buying process? Or are media days simply irrelevant now?

The PR guy who hosted us in Chicago reps a brand that skipped Detroit this year, one of several that didn’t go to Cobo. Yet his brand, and most of the others that skipped Detroit, had a presence in Chicago. I was told that some OEMs will skip a show if they don’t have a product to announce because it’s not a good sales market for them – but they will come to cities that are strong markets. So if a brand doesn’t do well in Detroit but sells lots of cars in Chicago or New York, they’ll skip Detroit (unless they have an announcement to make) and spend the money on a stand in one of those cities.

That makes sense from a business perspective, but it does limit that brand’s exposure to media and consumers. Or maybe not, at least from a media perspective, if those media days matter less than they did 10 or 15 years ago.

Consumer days aren’t going away anytime soon, but perhaps our editorial calendar will look vastly different in five years’ time. Weigh in below.

[Image: TTAC]