volkswagen

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Car Companies Lack Ideas

August 31, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

“Chrysler looks beyond BBDO for advertising” is the headline on Ad Age Digital this morning. BBDO has always done great work for Jeep, but Jeep was an iconic brand with a branding idea. The Chrysler brand doesn’t really have an idea. Ford doesn’t have a powerful branding idea. And certainly GM doesn’t. But GM doesn’t really need one because short of GMC trucks, you won’t find a car with a GM name on it. Volkswagen had an idea but let it slip away to the point where when the market was ready for the idea (small, efficient, eco-conscious), they weren’t there. Had they been, they might now be on their way to a defensible position as the world’s largest car company. Even Hummer has an idea.  

 

When you possess a branding idea — also called a brand strategy — product design and innovation become easy. When you don’t, you change vendors, partners, ad agencies, and management. And that’s not much of an idea. Peace!

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IPG Emerging Media Lab and SocialVibe..a Bad Vibe.

August 26, 2008 in Marketing | 0 Comments

I applaud Interpublic Group and its Emerging Media Lab for dabbling in social networking. A firm, firm believer that branded social nets will be an important marketing tool, I think this particular effort in conjunction with SocialVibe, will not work. Not in its current incarnation.  
 
Using micropayments to consumers to endorse brands, even in cause-related marketing feels forced. SocialVibe as a branded third party intermediary is where the idea falls down for me. Social nets bringing people together on marketers’ sites does make sense: Pampers talking baby ass, Milk Bone talking dog teeth. Volkswagen talking energy conservation and greening even makes sense. But the whole payment thing based on a personal endorsement — even to a cause — feels like a marketing dud. Another example of a technology looking for a marketing idea?
 
If IPG learns from this effort and creates a means by which marketers can turn up meaningful social nets, with ease, brand relevance and differentiation, it will have a winner. Though I would bet on Publicis rather than IPG in this space, I’m hopeful IPG pulls it off.
 
 

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September 6, 2007 in Marketing | 0 Comments

MTV is showing its crow’s feet. Those are wrinkles around the eyes for you younger readers. Here’s a franchise that blazed new trails in music, thanks to video, and has now lost much relevance. They are into many, many things today: cable TV programming, video games, movies, online portal content — I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a consumer food product in there somewhere.

 
The MTV Awards has been flagging in viewership the last few years and this is their biggest chance each year to be relevant. And relevant in a core business way.
 
Some say MVT has lost touch with kids’ media consumption habits, missing the boat in online video and social networking. I completely agree. As TV and computer morph together, you have to know that MTV wasn’t paying close attention.   MySpace became the online venue of choice for small and mid-size bands. YouTube became the purveyor of online videos. And the next video platform is still being figured out and I don’t think it will have an MTV brand associated with it. (Sadly, this will be a pay-for service.)
 
This was, and is, all MTV’s turf. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Volkswagen should have owned the small car, energy efficient vehicle market. It was a natural. They missed the boat too. 

MTV can turn its sh*t around, but it needs to hurry.

 

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Volkswagen. Asleep at the Wheel.

August 16, 2007 in Marketing | 0 Comments

It’s never too late, but this whole fuel efficient, lower emission car thing should have been the provenance of Volkswagen. It was made to order for them.   But NOOO, they had to spend time designing the Touareg.

 
They owned both the “product” and the “consumer psyche” in this rich automotive marketing space. Moreover, as anyone who has ever written a brief for a German multinational knows, German companies gets major credit for engineering. It would have been a “can’t miss.” Yet they let the Toyota and Honda beat them.
 
In the early fall Volkswagen is launching a marketing campaign around fuel-efficient, low carbon-dioxide emitting vehicles.    Will it be too late? No. Muscle memory will help. But they clearly didn’t have enough vision, to get ahead of this one. Where’s the leadership?
 

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Crispin Porter

February 20, 2007 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Crispin Porter is a good ad agency. That said, I’ve often wondered whether they can represent large consumer brands in a way that actually grows and sustains business. I’m not alone. They have taken some heat in the press and had high profile account losses.
 
This past weekend, though, they ran a Volkswagen Jetta ad in the New York Times and it was “terrific.”  Sitting beneath the traditional silhouetted car photo – the traditional layout from years past – was the headline “Junk in the Trunk.” I couldn’t pass it by. Expecting to read about extra trunk space, I was surprised to find out all about Jetta’s extra features. 
 
I know Crispin is a great media company and that they conceive startling creative, but maybe they should just sit the creative teams down and ask everyone to hone their print advertising skills. Our business is not only about being inventive, it’s about learning how to “sell.” This may be a good place for them to recharge their batteries.  

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