In this Boston Globe article, Royal Ford outlines an ignition coil problem with most VW's and Audis built after 2000. Apparently VW will not replace the coils unless they fail. Well, failure means your car just randomly stops working no matter where you are. Not a very good image to have as a car manufacturer. I don't know who handles the PR for either VW or Audi but Arnold in Boston, who has the VW account, may have some damage control to do on this from the marketing front.
I own a 1999 Passat and love it. I have owned two VW's before that. Like most cars, they do have their quirks. A faulty ignition, however, is not a quirk. It is a safety issue and why VW has not instituted a recall for the problem is beyond me. Even the dealers are throwing their hands up in frustration.
Arnold has done an amazing job bringing VW back from near death. If this problem is allowed to continue, there will be serious brand equity problems that will take years to overcome.
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Here we go again with the silly politically correct overreactions to advertisements. Here we have the American Trucking Association President, Bill Graves, complaining that, in its Superbowl ad, Monster unfairly portrayed "the trucking industry and America's professional truck drivers in an unsafe and unrealistic manner."
In an equally PC and ridiculous move, Andrew McKelvey actually called the ATA to apologize saying Monster is "conscientiously working very hard to make amends with ATA and the trucking industry."
The ad was a joke! People need to get their heads out of their proverbial PC asses and have a good laugh.
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Just like Maxim and others, Gear is partnering with J. Walter Thompson to produce a half hour music show called "Conversations" which will be hosted by Bob Guccione Jr.
So this is the trend that will follow reality programming?
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So now you can plaster your logo on a pool table and balls. Nifty. Courtesy of Encompass Outdoor Media, this is the latest form of ad onslaught. Do you really want to go into a pool hall, have a beer, relax...and stare at a McDonald's logo? Innovative, yes. Annoying? Of course.
Will it work? It all depends on the creative. And your threshold for pain.
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"North Korea continues amassing a nuclear cache. The country is on the verge of war. That's reality. But it's not spiking the ratings on prime time."
So summarizes an article in Business Week about Reality TV and how it is taking us over and pushing far more important issues to the side. The article likens it to Crack. The ride is great on the way up but it's a bad fall on the way down.
Why do we like it?
"By vaulting nobodies into overnight celebrities, these shows appeal to the flip side of America's fascination with stardom: people's secret resentment at being shut out of Hollywood's seven-carat system. Reality TV is revenge for the regular Jane and Joe."
All well and good but it may end in with a very big and collective withdrawl.
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Cable TV is allowing for some very interesting targeting abilities as dicussed in this MediaPost article:
A deal signed last December now allows spot cable rep firm National Cable Communications to test technology from Visible World and SeaChange International. The technology gives advertisers the ability to put together different versions of commercials and deliver them to customers in different geographic zones using cable TV availability. The manufacturers say the variables that can be customized in real time include geographic selectivity, programming content, demographic clusters, date/time sensitivity, and product offerings.
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The staff at ZDNet Tech Update has been laid off. How are they looking for work? They have put themselves up for bid on eBay as a turnkey online publishing solution. A new form of classified advertising? Will it work? Monitor their bids on eBay to find out.
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TiVo and Fox have put together an agreement that will provide TiVo's 510,000 subscribers movie trailers, behind the scence footage, interviews, and music. Here's the PR quip:
"Companies that know entertainments understand that TiVo Showcases offer a rich, creative promotional opportunity that does more than advertise," said Brodie Keast, TiVo's senior vice president and general manager. "The unique capabilities of the TiVo Showcase let marketers build deeper relationships with viewers."
It's nice to see that at least some companies are realizing that using a TiVo is not stealing TV as some television executives would have us belive but rather a new and exciting medium with it's own new and exciting marketing possibilties.
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