Anyone else pissed about the new Honda & Nissan ads?

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

You know, the ads where they claim to be american car companies and try to convince everyone that it's okay to be anti-domestic.

"You just keep doing what you do, and we'll keep building cars you want to buy." -- Honda

Translates to: Just keep believing that Detroit is worthless, because we'll sell you a car instead. --or-- We're better off without Detroit anyway. Or, Detroit builds cars no one wants to buy.

It's the over all tone that pisses me off. This is the kind of shady business I've bitched about for years. It seesk to benefit from Detroit's loss, as usual. I mean really; 60% of the country hates the automakers anyway and now it seems that these companies are going to do all that they can through 'suggestive' ads to reinforce and promote that hatred.

I don't know what pisses me off more, the aim of the ads (It's almost like these companies actively seek the death of Detroit, whenever possible) or the way they do it. If they want to go against Detroit and team up with the blindly loyal, then just come out and say it... Have the senators that you OBVIOUSLY lobbied and paid REVEAL their reasons for what they did. No more of this begrudging, hypocritical

I'm so tired of this being a one-sided fight. I'm angry that Detroit gets the bad end of the deal in EVERY scenario, but I'm also angry that Detroit either refuses OR isn't intelligent enough to fight. Damn it, it's time to come out swinging! When will they understand this?

I can't remember the latest Nissan ad, and I don't think it's as bad, but none the less they too are trying to drive the knife further into the back of Detroit.

Edited December 15, 2008 by FUTURE_OF_GM

[A Horse With No Name]

I agree...I personally dislike the design of most Nissan automobiles, and dislike their buisiness practices.

I noticed the same thing in a Honda ad and a Nissan ad last night. usually I don't watch TV, but I've been to the emergency room twice and the doctor once with an ear infection from hell...and it's tough to do much when they give you Percocet for pain.

But keep posting FOG, at least I'm reading and paying attention.

Chris

[BuddyP]

Haven't seen em but these are the type of ads GM should've been doing a long time ago, but in good taste.

[A Horse With No Name]

GM does need to be more positive and agressive in their advertising, for sure.

Chris

[BuddyP]

They threw themslevs to the wolves the day they stepped onto the planes to head to DC. Not that they had many other directions to go. But there should've been a huge shackup within house and plans of CHapt 11.... then if people and Gov't got worried they could've stepped in, gave em money and been way better off in the eyes of the media and common man.

[BuddyP]

GM does need to be more positive and agressive in their advertising, for sure.

Chris

Their existing marketing sucks. That's the first division that needs overhauled.

[network engineer]

Their existing marketing sucks. That's the first division that needs overhauled.

Or they could simply eliminate their marketing department and hire an outside firm like TBWA/Chiat/Day that does Apples ads.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

I agree that GM's marketing sucks, big time... All the product in the world can't save you if you CANNOT EFFECTIVELY INFORM THE CONSUMER THAT YOU EVEN MAKE THE PRODUCT.

Oh, and BTW, the Nissan ads say: "You don't just need a car, you need a car company."

I think the UAW and domestics should for a marketing alliance that directly targets and attacks the imports. So what if you piss of the import loyalists, they'll likely never buy an american car again anyway.

Site like the engine of democracy are a good start, but the media (of course) gave that site ZERO exposure. It's going to take $$$ to gt this campaign started. It'd be funny and ironic if Detroit used bailout money for this, LOL.

[CARBIZ]

Well, Nissan is the illegitimate offspring of the Japanese Army born to build tanks, trucks and guns in Manchuria, using slave Chinese labor, but I doubt somehow that you will see that on their website.

As long as our media is lazy, North American businesses benefit from their collusion with Japanese multi-nationals, and our political leaders incompetent, nothing will happen and we will all just skip down the road to oblivion and historical irrelevance.

[loki]

Site like the engine of democracy are a good start, but the media (of course) gave that site ZERO exposure. It's going to take fed notes to gt this campaign started. It'd be funny and ironic if Detroit used illegal bailout money for this, LOL.

a few corrections...?

not trying to devalue what this thread really is about though. maybe some fact/mud throwing from the big 3 would serve the public right.

Edited December 14, 2008 by loki

[gmcbob]

Yeah, I've seen the ads too and I didn't really like the tone either.

Clearly they are trying to subtly take advantage of the absolutely dire situation that the Big 3 are in. It's pretty dirty, but then again, this is "Super-Capitalism" in it's most pure and unadulterated form - a truly American innovation. What's insane about it, is that our politicians and our media are really, really good at duping an already biased public into believing that we should continue to send huge buckets of money over to Asia, let their companies do business here with hardly any strings attached, while basically punishing the companies that essentially created the mass produced automobile as we know it. The whole thing is so depressing on so many levels that I feel like I should start injecting high dosages of Paxil and/or Zoloft just to calm myself down.

Admittedly, my wife and I do own a Japanese car (G35), but that's really because my wife wanted the car so bad, and she always "wins" in those kinds of situations. However, when I needed a car for myself back in September, I conscientiously bought the Vue, truly knowing that I didn't want to send any more of my money off to Japan - and to at least help give GM, and our own industrial base a fighting chance. (Ironically, I bought a Mexican made GM product, but I'm not stupid enough to fall into the "Big 3 make cars in Mexico so they really aren't American" trap).

As much as I have virtually no faith in our Government (and especially the Bush White House), I still think there's some hope that they'll come through and ensure that GM and Chrysler at least make it into the new year, so the new Congress can help them restructure (outside CH11 of course). If for anything else, to at least keep the unemployment numbers from going a lot higher.

I will say this though, despite the really good progress and product coming out of GM over the past few years, they still seem to me like a really, really screwed up company internally. I think they let the UAW walk all over them, they clearly had no sense of urgency on how to manage their debt cost, or any other type of cost. Moreover, their Public Relations department either doesn't exist, or is totally on drugs, their marketing has to be the absolute worst in the business, and they've simply done a completely awful job on getting the word out to the general public on the progress they have made on the product side (just read a lot of the message boards on ABC, FOX News, etc, etc,....people still think GM cars aren't "innovative", etc, etc). When it comes to getting the word out, GM gets a C-, maybe even a D. The commercials on TV and in print need to be more modern. In that area, the imports really do have a much better handle on grabbing people's attention, and attracting buyers that have money. That's an area that GM utterly fails in.

Edited December 14, 2008 by gmcbob

[Sixty8panther]

I agree...I personally dislike the design of most Nissan automobiles, and dislike their buisiness practices.

Yup.... if I was to buy a Japanese car

Datsun/Nissan/Infiniti would be the

most likely of them all, that being said

I'm happy to drive my beat to sh!t

B-body winter-car turned daily driver

and leave my Datsun obsession in the

past. Of course if Mazda ever made a

modern iteration of a RX-4 in a 2-door

hardtop with a tripple-rotary bi-turbo

motor and a 6-speed manual trans. I

just might turn hypocrite.

[smk4565]

Nissan's ads say something to the effect of "you don't just want a car, you want a car company" trying to imply that the domestic companies may not be around to back the car they sold you. If I were Toyota, I would just come right out and run ads that say GM, Chrysler, and Ford could go bankrupt, why buy a car from them, when we have 0% financing and are financially secure. Detroit got themselves into this mess, they have no right to complain when they get dragged through the mud by competitors or the media. If Detroit doesn't like it, they should make profit and shut up the critics.

[Satty]

a few corrections...?

I find it funny that you refer to the bailout money as illegal since it was signed into law, and there is this funny thing about things signed into law being legal.

[balthazar]

If I were Toyota, I would just come right out and run ads that say GM, Chrysler, and Ford could go bankrupt, why buy a car from them, when we have 0% financing and are financially secure. Detroit got themselves into this mess, they have no right to complain when they get dragged through the mud by competitors or the media.

You

don't

seem

to

realize...

.

..

.

you

already

.

..

'are'

.

toyota..

.

...

..

.

.

..

.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Nissan's ads say something to the effect of "you don't just want a car, you want a car company" trying to imply that the domestic companies may not be around to back the car they sold you. If I were Toyota, I would just come right out and run ads that say GM, Chrysler, and Ford could go bankrupt, why buy a car from them, when we have 0% financing and are financially secure.

Yeah... I wish you ran Toyota PR.

That would be a disaster. Taking Toyota down after that would be TOO easy.

[turbo200]

If I were Toyota, I would just come right out and run ads that say GM, Chrysler, and Ford could go bankrupt, why buy a car from them, when we have 0% financing and are financially secure. Detroit got themselves into this mess, they have no right to complain when they get dragged through the mud by competitors or the media. If Detroit doesn't like it, they should make profit and shut up the critics.

that's ironic....i was going to tell you to be quiet because this is actually a quite reasonable pitch and with good potential for success,,,but yeah it;d be shady down and dirty. the fact is this is capatilism....i wish there were one dissenting voice on the buy american cars subject, but apparently this industry matters little to the overall health of the country.

[loki]

I find it funny that you refer to the bailout money as illegal since it was signed into law, and there is this funny thing about things signed into law being legal.

not if the "law" doesn't have the proper authority behind it. ...not that that type of stuff seems to matter any more... like how the "posse comitatus act" keeps military out of civilian police dealings, but supposedly a unit (not sure how big) is going to be stationed in cali i think...i could find it if you want to know more.

[Sixty8panther]

On a positive note.... I'm lovin ' the new B-59 Sig. Balthy.

How close is yous to done?

[Sal Collaziano]

Once GM can start spending advertising money on ONE or TWO vehicles per segment - instead of FIVE, they'll have enough money to properly market their products.. I think that day is coming soon...

GM does need to be more positive and agressive in their advertising, for sure.

Chris

[balthazar]

On a positive note.... I'm lovin ' the new B-59 Sig. Balthy.

How close is yous to done?

Why do you have to be so mean ?

[A Horse With No Name]

Once GM can start spending advertising money on ONE or TWO vehicles per segment - instead of FIVE, they'll have enough money to properly market their products.. I think that day is coming soon...

One can hope...perhaps we will have a GM revival.

Chris

[haypops]

I haven't seen the add you people are referring to. The add that rubs me the wrong way is the VW add claiming American woman are getting pregnant just to have an excuse to buy German engineering and they they show a Chrysler minivan masquerading as a VW.

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

I haven't seen the add you people are referring to. The add that rubs me the wrong way is the VW add claiming American woman are getting pregnant just to have an excuse to buy German engineering and they they show a Chrysler minivan masquerading as a VW.

True that...

And I bet they'll be successful in fooling everyone as well.

[Intrepidation]

I gave the VW guy at the auto show a hard time about that...

[biff]

No one realizes the VW van is a Chrysler. It's fun to fill people in.

Toyota does an excellant job at PR and damage control. The biggest reason I don't like them is too many times when they screw up there's a 'Toyota spokes person' saying the defect or whatever is the result of an American supplier and that Toyota did nothing wrong, and sheeple eat it up.

[Lamar]

Y'know, I've seen a few ads from GM where they promote one of their cars (including the G8 GT), and the tagline is...

"From GM.

Surprised?"

I kinda like them.

The Honda and Nissan ads are a bit much though... especially the Honda.

[Teh Ricer Civic!]

Those companies would be foolish not to play up some part of this. This is excellent marketing fodder for those companies. Hell if i ran their PR divisions i would make sure something like this was here.

If i was Ford, since people seem to think Ford is in a better spot, i might mention something to the same extent too!

Complaining about this is like complaining that people are allowed to say negative things about other people.

That being said, i as a person hate these new ads from Honda

[Intrepidation]

If I were GM I'd make an ad that went something like this:

Well you could by [insert Asian brands here], if you want nothing more than a bland appliance that is the automotive equivalent of a toaster. Or alternatively;y, you could buy a car that is actually exciting to look at, fun to drive, and won't make you fall asleep looking at it. You could settle for competent, or you could settle for world class, like the CTS. CTS-V, Corvette ZR-1, Malibu.

[Intrepidation]

Or...

Why have rice when you could have steak?

Aw Snap!

[siegen]

I think some of you are making quite a stretch to think these ads have anything to do with the current turmoil of the America auto companies. It sounds, from the descriptions given, like completely ordinary advertisements to me. Is there by chance a YouTube of these or similar so I can see for myself these vile overtones? :AH-HA_wink:

"You just keep doing what you do, and we'll keep building cars you want to buy." -- Honda

Translates to: Just keep believing that Detroit is worthless, because we'll sell you a car instead. --or-- We're better off without Detroit anyway. Or, Detroit builds cars no one wants to buy.

If that is a direct quote, and there are no images of Fits driving over Tahoes and Escalades in monster truck fashion in the video, then I will say that is a huge stretch to think that they're implying that from the ad. That could have been their intent, we don't know, but it is not apparent from that. Perhaps they're targeting Toyota with the ad. "You just keep buying those pig-nosed vehicles, and we'll build cars for the cool people".

[Sixty8panther]

No one realizes the VW van is a Chrysler. It's fun to fill people in.

DF filled ME in jut recently. I had no idea it was a blatant rebadge.

I could give a @%% less about any VW that is not air-cooled.

[thenewdamage]

Hmmm...I wonder if all the ads attacking American car companies are designed and made by American or Japanese ad agencies? I am pretty sure it would be American ad agencies.

[Lamar]

Hmmm...I wonder if all the ads attacking American car companies are designed and made by American or Japanese ad agencies? I am pretty sure it would be American ad agencies.

Seeing as how there are no Japanese ad agencies in the States (that I know of), your question is spurious at best.