THE AUTOEXTREMIST
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 04:40PM October 14, 2009
Automotive marketing needs a swift kick in the ass.
By Peter M. De Lorenzo
(Posted 10/13, 5:00pm) Detroit. As another tumultuous year rapidly turns toward home and the warm summer breezes begin receding with the incursion of crisp cool air, my thoughts turn to warm apple cider and the kaleidoscope of fall foliage bathing the landscape in furious color.
Or, maybe not.
Actually, around this time of year my thoughts turn to the marketing and advertising missteps and misdeeds that I’ve witnessed throughout the year to date and that continue to cloak this business in an abject shroud of mediocrity.
It galls me to see what has become of the automotive ad biz, because what once was a pretty cool and creative endeavor has turned into an “up at dawn, pride-swallowing siege” as Cameron Crowe once so eloquently put it while writing “Jerry McGuire.”
It wasn’t always the case, thank goodness, not by any means. Actually, automotive advertising was once one of the most fun ways you could get paid while working. But before this spins into a dour tome about the “good ol’ days,” I’d like to talk about what’s going on in the business today, because as of right now - minus a few choice exceptions, and thank goodness there are always a few - automotive marketing and advertising has become so safe and predictably stale that it’s excruciatingly painful to watch.
Where is the attitude? Where is the sense of humor? Where is the personality? Nowhere to be found, I’m afraid, except, as I mentioned, in a very few instances. Automotive marketers always seem to be the last to receive the memo that reminds them that they’re in the business of leading the discussion, setting the tone, tapping into the “thing” of the moment, or even flat-out entertaining us once in a while too.
That’s what great marketing is all about, at the end of the day.
Yes, of course it’s there to sell products, but marketing done creatively should do much more than that. It should take us places, make us think, make us dream a little bit and sometimes even just make us laugh for the hell of it.
Beer marketers get it. Insurance marketers shockingly get it. Fast food marketers get it, and so on. But automotive marketers? Where do you think the term “painfully conservative” came from?
And right about now there will be some out there – most likely at the car companies – saying something like this, “We aren’t selling cans of beer here. We’re selling sophisticated machinery that demands respect and proper context. Frivolity is undesirable and unwanted in our category.”
Blah, blah, blah.
Yes, I get the fact that we’re in the midst of one of the greatest economic calamities since they began keeping track of such things, but that’s no excuse for automotive advertising that’s asleep at the wheel, or just plain dreadful.
Why is it so hard? I’ll tell you why. Automotive marketers are too often squeamish, risk-averse or clueless. There, I said it. Yes, at least 75 percent of the people involved in automotive marketing don’t know what the hell they’re doing - it’s a pathetic fact but it’s the High-Octane Truth. They either don’t get it, couldn’t find a clue if you spotted them the “cl” and the “e,” or view marketing as something they sort of spent time with back when they got their MBAs, but unfortunately none of it sank in. And whatever it is they did or didn’t learn along the way is what they bring with them to the table every day.
Which is why dumb decisions are made and bad advertising gets on the air and “out there” on the digital planet every day.
And to make matters even worse, automotive marketers are quick to blame the advertising agencies too. After all, when sales are bad, the finger pointing will eventually stop at the advertising. And if the hue and cry gets demonstrative enough, it will eventually result in the advertising agency being shown the door over “creative differences.”
But as I’ve said many times in this column over the years, there’s a time-honored adage in the advertising business that suggests that clients ultimately get the advertising they deserve. In other words, if you have clueless, ill-informed marketers calling the shots on major advertising launches, bad things happen. And bad work gets produced.
Another time-honored adage in this business that you can take to the bank is that the most powerful form of advertising to this day is word of mouth. It’s what your friends and neighbors talk about, it’s the buzz on the street, and it’s the aura that is created for a car via the burgeoning forms of “social media” seemingly overrunning everything at the moment. And great advertising should play a role in jump-starting all of that, not bringing it to a screeching halt, like too often happens these days.
Right now I’m seeing automotive marketers running scared for the most part. They’re so desperate not to offend any constituency that they end up boring all of us to tears in the process. And it’s getting really tiresome.
Well, I will argue that people still need to be seduced. (Oh, you don’t think advertising can be seductive? Then you’re kidding yourself.) And people still need a compelling reason that will get them off of the couch and actually make them remember a shred of information about a product that they find appealing.
The bottom line is that automotive advertising needs to soar again. It needs to turn people on and get people talking, or laughing, or whatever.
The mope-a-dope, apologetic, “inoffensive is best” tone being employed by too many marketers in automotive advertising today is tedious. And wrong. They need to get over themselves and in a big hurry too.
One automotive marketer who seems to get it is Scott Keogh, Audi of America’s director of marketing. In an interview with Automotive News this week he had this to say:
“Automotive marketing has become very conservative, very safe and entirely focused on the transaction – how cheap can I get it? You still have to be in the business of selling desire, dreams and great products.”
Amen, Scott.
Is it any wonder that Audi is on an upward trajectory in the luxury-performance class, threatening to take over its chief German rivals, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, while giving Lexus fits? I don’t think so.
Memo to automotive marketers: Stop banging out singles and start swinging for the fences. Stop anesthetizing the masses and start energizing the few who will jump-start that word-of-mouth buzz.
And whatever you do, just remember one thing: Before you can make us believe, you need to convince us that you believe.
Thanks for listening.
See another live episode of "Autoline After Hours" hosted by Autoline Detroit's John McElroy, with Peter De Lorenzo and friends this Thursday evening, at 7:00PM EDT at www.autolinedetroit.tv. By the way, if you'd like to subscribe to the Autoline After Hours podcasts, click on the following links: Subscribe via iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=311421319 http://www.autolinedetroit.tv/podcasts/feeds/afterhours-audio.xml
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