Driving back to SFO recently, I noticed this GM (General Motors) billboard. In essence, the message to Northern California drivers bound either for SFO or their jobs on the Peninsula or in Silicon Valley was:
- A Chevy SSR is for your wife.
- A Saab is for your girlfriend
- A Cadillac XLR coupe is for your mistress
- Visit www.findyourstyle.com to figure this out.
Advertising is often a useful way to peer into the soul of a company, or in other words, think about their dna and how the firm views its interaction with the outside world.
This campaign smells desperate to me. I’m reminded of Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy’s spot on statement regarding software: “The quality of a company’s software has an inverse relationship to the amount spent on marketing.”
I must admit that this ad campaign doesn’t click at all for me, from any angle. The whole pitch, including the website, seems like a lot of fluff. I visited the site and it promptly crashed my computer (PC, in this case). I tried again and it worked, although it later crashed just my browser.
Perhaps this all makes sense for some car buyers…..
I think GM would be much better off seeding cars to bloggers and schools for long term reviews (with the agreement that they write about their year or two with a sedan, minivan, SUV or sports car). This will take some doing, but I think it would be money well spent. Essentially, they need to route around the legacy media (see Bob Lutz’s notes on this).