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Well, Super Bowl XLIV is in the can, so Monday morning workplace chatter undoubtedly turns to analytical talk about which commercials were memorable and which were forgettable. This fascination with the advertising industry usually subsides, but for 24 glorious hours everyday citizens of these United States become Ad Critics worthy of walk-on roles on Mad Men. The theory is simple: with such high asking prices for commercial air time, ad agencies would put forth their most impressive and witty pitches to entice the viewing public to buy, buy, buy! That's the theory, anyway. One industry that can always do with some more buy, buy, buy! is the auto industry. Not counting locally-aired spots, this year's Super Bowl had offerings from Audi, Dodge, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and Volkswagen. Representing four major auto groups, you would think one manufacturer could evoke some sort of emotionally-charged campaign of unforgettable brilliance to reinforce brand loyalty for those who already bought their product, while at the same time enticing the uninitiated to desperately want to join this club of mass exclusivity. On that count, we have a big fat no.
Whether it's Honda's use of a videogame squirrel animation to introduce what is essentially an Accord hatch back, or Hyundai's begging for us to think about the hidden features that might make their Sonata the practical luxury choice, they all missed the mark. Having a sock monkey jump a Kia Sorento with Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba riding shotgun is cool and all, but it doesn't make you covet their SUV. Not one automotive commercial created enough synergy to make you cry out, "Holy crap, YES! I want to buy FIVE of those, now!" But what of Dodge Charger's "Man's Last Stand", you ask? Does it not throw down the challenge of manhood and hold the exclusive key to its private club? Yeah, well, truth be told, I'd rather make a last stand for the 2010 Challenger than for a pseudo-muscle car that looks like a Ram Truck Quad Cab with a trunk instead of a flat bed. Seriously, Dodge just alienated all female drivers from potentially purchasing their 4-door faux-muscle-car-sedan, and painted all male owners as whipped, submissive dweebs that are receiving this vehicle as a consolation prize for handing their bollocks to their significant other. Way to think that one through, Dodge.
One manufacturer I was looking forward to seeing was Audi. With a 17 year hiatus from Super Bowl advertising, Audi resurfaced in 2008 with a beautiful spoof of the Godfather movies promoting their R8. In 2009 their focus was on a time-traveling Jason Statham doing his best Transporter role while driving a Supercharged A6. This year we get rent-a-cops with an eco-agenda threatening environmentally-challenged individuals with incarceration. Of course the owner of an Audi A3 TDI clean diesel gets a wave-through from the Green Police, with an altered version of Cheap Trick's song Dream Police as the soundtrack. What they should have used is Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me. Might as well beg for customers instead of using green-washing as a tactic to promote yourself. Pretty soon, being green will become as passé as being space-age. Consumers just expect it. Whatever happened to the kind of advertising that stuck with you? The cinematic productions that inspired and awed you? Commercials like Ridley Scott's directed one-off for Nissan in 1990. It aired during Super Bowl XXIV and never ran again. Yet, if asked, many Nissan 300ZX (Z32) owners can recite the ad verbatim. “They Don't Make Them Like They Used To”
I doubt VW owners will still be playing Punch Dub later this week let alone in 20 years. Volkswagen took a beloved road-trip game known as Slug Bug (slugging your sibling's arm whenever you saw a VW Beatle as you call out the color), and defiled it by renaming it Punch Dub to encompass their whole line of vehicles. Now, if your product is so unique that an adolescent child can instantly recognize it from the backseat of a moving vehicle, don't undermine that consumer-created phenomena by exploiting it for thinly veiled marketing purposes. Jetta Jab doesn't exist for a reason. In this day of complete marketing bombardment, ad agencies and auto manufacturers have to step back and realize that educated consumers recognize when they are being targeted with carefully-crafted messages. The awareness levels are at their peak, and only climbing. Instead of inadvertently portraying themselves as out-of-touch, irrelevant corporate zombies, marketers should pair their message with laughter, cleverness, and wit. Expect more from the consumer's intellect, and the consumer will reward you. Heck, your product might even be remembered more than who played that year. -Guss L. Tsatsakis Designer at advertising and marketing agency, Wilburn Thomas. |
This Week in Cars: 01.31.2010 – 02.06.2010
02.02.2010
02.03.2010
02.04.2010
02.05.2010
Clip of the Week:
Full Episodes
By the Numbers: January Car Sales Up 6%
January is typically the worst selling month of the year and January 2010 will probably be no different.
The industry managed to move 698,900 vehicles in the first month of 2010, that compares well to the 656,976 moved in January of 2009. The 6% overall increase is even more impressive when you consider that last year’s January had two extra selling days.
According to Automotive News, at a seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR) the industry is moving 10.5 million vehicles. That’s below December's SAAR of 11.9 million, but December is usually one of the better months for sales.
January numbers were so promising that General Motors raised its expectations for 2010 to an 11.5 - 12.0 million SAAR rate. Other industry analysts are predicting 11 – 11.5 million cars sold for 2010.
Still the picture isn’t all rosy. Despite Toyota’s debacle, overall retail sales for the month were actually down 4%. The 158,100 fleet sales are the only thing that kept January sales in the black. The Detroit 3 still comprise more than ~65% of the fleet volume, yet only comprise ~38% of all retail sales.
Big nameplate winners for the month included the Chevrolet Malibu (+76.5%), Chevrolet Cobalt (+149.7%), Buick Lacrosse (+185.2%), Chevrolet HHR (+220.7%) and Chevrolet Equinox (+76.1%).
When you see vehicles like the Cobalt and the HHR way up the first thing that should come to mind is fleet sales. GM sold 42,703 vehicles to fleets – that’s a 225% increase, according to Forbes.
Also concerning is the fact that the Malibu, now the third best selling family sedan, is the third slowest selling vehicles in America. It takes 71 days to move a Malibu off a dealer’s lot, according to Truecar. Industry wide average stood at 49 days in December.
Despite GM’s non-core brands (Saab, Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac) contributing virtually zero to the company’s market share, GM still managed to boost share by over one percent to land at 20.9%.
Ford sold 112,149 vehicles, a 24.4% increase. Of those sales, nearly 42,000 were fleet – a 154% increase over last year. More Ford’s went to government, commercial and rental fleets as a percentage of total sales than Ford’s main rivals, GM or Toyota.
According to automotive-fleet.com, Ford can take solace in the fact that its fleet sales are the good kind. A majority of Ford's fleet sales are to commercial and government customers, ordering up Ford F-Series, Econoline vans, Fusions, Taurus, and Escapes.
Ford still has a pretty bad sales mix: 63% truck vs. 37% car sales. That’s not a good sign, considering gas prices have been on the rise for more than a year now.
Big nameplate winners for the month include Ford Taurus (+121.0%), Ford Crown Victoria (+91.0%), Mercury Grand Marquis (+111.9%), Ford Mustang (+61.2), Ford Fusion (+49.4%) and Ford Focus (+33.7%).
Ford ended the month with a 16.1% market share, usurping Toyota to become the second largest automaker in the United States.
Toyota’s had a lot of this coming, but fortunately for the automaker the cessation of sales and production of eight of its most popular models came late in the month – only 4 days until the end of the sales count.
Toyota sold 98,796 vehicles this month, a -15.8% decrease from January 09. All of Toyota’s recalled models (except for the RAV4) posted negative numbers: Camry (-17.7%), Corolla/ Matrix (-3.6%), Avalon (-51.7%), Highlander (-15.7%), Sequoia (-56.2%) and Tundra (-40.2%).
Still, Toyota can’t blame the recall for all its woes. The Tundra, Sequoia and Avalon have consistently been poor sellers. Also, Toyota’s light truck sales performed worse than the rest of the industry (-23.7%).
On the bright side, RAV4 sales were up (+6.4%), and Lexus had a solid return of 15,517 vehicles (+14.2%).
What kills Toyota though is the slight percentage decreases in vehicles like the Camry and Corolla, which still make up the lion’s share of the automaker’s sales. The Camry – the top selling car of 2009 – fell to 7th place in January, with only 15,792 Camrys sold.
Toyota has publicly stated it is not too concerned by the flagging sales numbers. Production will restart at the six affected car plants sometime next week. CTS Automotive, the part supplier who built the faulty pedals, is producing redesigned pedals that will go into those new vehicles.
Toyota ended the month with a 14.1% share, a 3.8% share drop, its lowest since 2006.
Since Honda sells very few vehicles to fleet operations, its sales numbers are actually in line with the retail industry average for the month.
The top three Honda models in sales for January were the Honda Accord (20,759 units), Honda Civic (14,693) and Honda CR-V (9,672). The Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Honda FCX Clarity and Acura MDX were the only Honda’s to post positive sales numbers for the month.
The Honda Accord is now the bestselling family sedan – though this has more to do with the Toyota Camry’s recall than anything Honda has done.
Honda ended the month with a 9.7% market share. Honda has actually lost more than a 1% of market share to rivals – that’s about the same share lost by Chrysler.
According to Edmunds, some of Nissan’s improved position has to do with increased incentive spending. Nissan was the only automaker to increase incentive spending this month – to $2,455 per vehicle sold.
Nissan’s clear sales leader was the Nissan Altima, now the fourth bestselling vehicle in America. The Altima was less than 500 units away from beating the Honda Accord as the top selling American family sedan.
Nameplate winners include the Nissan Maxima (+51.8%), Nissan Armada (+97.8%), Nissan Sentra (+40.9%) and QX56 (+180%).
Infiniti moved 6,711vehicle, down 5.7% from the same month last year.
Some good news for Chrysler was that it slashed $1,230 off of incentive spending, according to Edmunds. Chrysler now spends the least on incentives out of any of the Detroit 3.
Big nameplate winners include the Chrysler Sebring (+85%), Jeep Compass (+52%), Dodge Journey (+55%), Dodge Avenger (+44%) and Dodge Caravan (+34%). The newly created Ram brand was 25% down. In fact, only one Chrysler vehicle was a top 20 nameplate for January – the Ram in 14th place.
Analysts estimate fleet amounted to about 40% of Chrysler sales, the highest of any major automaker. Chrysler’s market share stood at 8.2% - a more than 1% drop in market share from last January.
Interestingly, Kia barely posted positive numbers and actually lost market share in January. Kia’s poor truck sales are dragging the brand down. The Kia Sportage (-81%), Kia Sedona (-63%) and Kia Rondo (-78.5%) had terrible showings. Though, with 7,398 new Sorentos sold, Kia almost cracked the top 20 best selling nameplates – the closest Hyundai to do so.
Over at the Hyundai brand, the Accent (+61.9%), Elantra (+133%) and new 2011 Tuscon (+128%) showed dramatic growth. Sonata sales were pretty bad (-37%), but the legacy model is being sold down to make room for the 2011MY.
Hyundai/ Kia have a couple of slow selling models. According to Truecar, the 2010 Kia Forte and 2010 Hyundai Sonata are the 1st and 2nd slowest selling 2010 model year vehicles in the country. It takes 72 days to move a Forte, which is disconcerting because that’s a newly released model. The Kia Forte is Kia’s bestselling car.
For 2010, Hyundai plans on introducing a new Accent, Elantra, Sonata, Tuscon, Kia Sportage and a Kia large sedan.
If Hyundai keeps this sales pace up, expect it to surpass Nissan, Chrysler and maybe even Honda in 2010.
***Source: Sales data provided by the OEM. Market share/ vehicle segment analysis provided by www.motorintelligence.com via The Wall Street Journal ***
AutoBird Podcast – Esp 13: “Toyota Recall Redux”
This week on the podcast we go over Toyota’s recall situation, again. Besides that, there’s a ton of information buried in this weeks 80 minutes. In our news segment: we discuss Lincoln, Mercury and Ford and possible sales cannibalization. Also in Ford news, we go over that company’s crossover bonanza. We finish up the news by discussing Ed Whitacre’s now permanent tenureship as General Motors CEO.
In the garage: Joel talks about his experiences with the V6 Equinox.
Clip of the week: We go over Chrysler’s "Coming Home" clip and the automakers reinvigorated media campaign.
Talking Points:
Listen, comment and enjoy!
For additional information visit AutoBird Blog and Accelerate Minneapolis
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Toyota Sales May Fall 75% Due to Recall
Toyota's snowballing recall issues reached their pinnacle last week as the automaker halted sales of 8 of their most popular models. Even though the automaker tried to save face, saying they halted sales and production under its own volition, it was discovered that the US government forced the car maker to halt the sales.
Even though the automaker now has a government-approved solution to the sudden acceleration issues, it will take weeks for the carmaker and its dealers to coordinate and train maintenance workers to install the shims.
Toyota will have to fix 150,000 vehicles in dealer inventory and 2.3 million vehicles in consumer hands. The fix involves replacing a piece of the faulty pedal with a steel bar, manufactured in Japan.
Until then, how has this affected Toyota's bottom-line? Needless to say, very badly. According to Edmunds, until Toyota can fix the vehicles, it has a stop on its factory lines and in its inventory – the maker can expect a sales drop of nearly 75% at the Toyota brand
Even though no Lexus or Scions were affected by the pedal issue (the floor mat recall is another story), Edmunds expects both those brands will suffer from Toyota’s blundering PR issues. Edmunds predicts that Scion may be down as much as 20% and Lexus down 10%.
Edmunds also predicts that Toyota’s market share for January will be at its lowest levels since 2006. Edmunds predicts a 14.7% share for Toyota. It’s predicted that Ford will surpass Toyota in total sales for the month of January, with Ford having an 18% market share.
In addition, General Motors, Ford and Hyundai have all announced incentives programs to poach weary Toyota buyers.
This will just make a bad situation worse over at Toyota. The automaker has fallen from grace ever since it became the world’s largest automaker (possibly a short-lived honor). Over the past year, Toyota’s overall sales have plunged. Toyota has performed at worse than the industry average, with global market share declining from 13.1% in 2008 to 11.8% for 2009.
In America, which accounts for 31% of Toyota’s global sales, despite the bumps and bruises inflicted by recalls and safety concerns Toyota had so far endured the damage. Toyota sold 1,770,149 vehicles in 2009, down from 2,217,662 in 2008. Toyota is now the largest retail seller of cars in America.
The carmaker already expected to lose some $5 billion during FY 2009-2010 fiscal year, but that target was announced before the recent (possibly expensive) recall situation.
The automaker’s stock as taken an obvious turn for the worse. On January 19th, Toyota’s stock stood at $91.71 today it’s at $80.10 – a ~13% drop.
Below is a list of affected Toyota product:
This Week in Cars: 01.24.2010 – 01.30.2010
01.25.2010
01.26.2010
01.27.2010
01.28.2010
01.29.2010
Dodge Mans Up With Three New Ads
Dodge has taken its first stab at reestablishing itself with three new ads for the Dodge Charger. Looks like Dodge will continue its macho stance as all three ads are fairly chauvinistic and abrasive. The ads are the first for Dodge’s new ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy.
All three ads feature a black 2010 Charger R/T. Each covers the same shot: the Dodge Charger’s 3/4th profile with a nice, easterly shadow of the vehicle produced by natural sunlight. The Charger is at the top of a parking garage. In each ad, the camera slowly zooms in on the Charger as Michael C. Hall, the star of "Dexter,” narrates.
The ads are named “Man Bag,” “Manship,” and “Mayans.” Apparently Wieden & Kennedy has a thing for M’s? In “Man Bag” Michael C. Hall describes everything that the Dodge Charger isn’t, a “yoga class,” “man scandals” or an “exfoliate with added moisturizer.”
Apparently these ads tease something we will see during this year’s Super Bowl on February 7th. Chrysler will air a 60-second spot advertising the Dodge Charger and the passion of Dodge. Chrysler is the only domestic automaker to show up at this year’s Super Bowl; however Audi, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai will also air ads. Estimates, put the slot at costing anywhere from $5 million - $7 million.
If you haven’t checked out Dodge’s redesigned website recently, they’ve done a pretty good job there as well. There’s also a new minisite for the Charger. The look and feel of the minisite is probably something we’ll see at the Super Bowl.
You can view the ads below. Watch, comment and enjoy!
Source: AutoNews
AutoBird Podcast – Esp 12: “Toyota Recalls”
This week Joel and I have a few new segments on the podcast. We added a headline news segment. In that segment we go over the Cadillac CTS Sportwagon’s price drop, Audi A3 idled production, the Mini Cooper Countryman/ 2011 Mazda5 unveils and low industry sales volume expected for January. We then discuss our clip of the week: Conan’s Bugatti Veyron Mouse.
After that, we dive into our talking points for the week. We discuss the Buick Regal and its pricing scheme. We then focus the lion’s share of our time on Toyota’s new recall of 2.3 million vehicles with sudden acceleration issues. We then round out this podcast with Honda’s hybrid woes and the flagging sales of the just released Honda Insight.
Listen, comment and enjoy!
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