Like cars? I do. Enjoy them while you can, because today we’ve taken one step closer to making them all obsolete. You see, the ObamaNation today sent out a decree from Barack Agustus that all the world’s automobiles shall be taxed, to the tune of $1,300, in order to force the big, bad automobile manufacturers to build vehicles that will deliver 34MPG by 2011.
Pause with me for a nanosecond while we consider this latest bit of lunacy.
First Obama becomes Marketer-in-Chief for Chrysler, cutting their advertising budget in half. Today, he set nationwide fuel economy standards for cars and trucks sold in the USA.
If Obamanomics dictates that it’s in the country’s best interest to get the Federal Government out of the car business, they’ve got a funny way of going about it. The absolute last thing the auto industry needs right now is the government telling them to improve fuel standards. Nice idea, higher mileage cars. Bad idea to put the government in charge, and worse idea to do it right now.
Not much more to say about this – for now, other than to wonder just what else the ObamaNation has planned for us.
They sure are good at campaigning, though. Pity the election is over.
DETROIT (AdAge.com) — Chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising over the nine weeks it’s expected to be in bankruptcy — the U.S. Treasury’s auto-industry task force gave it half that.
So if GM, which is wrestling with the possibility of a Chapter 11 filing itself, is wondering how much influence the task force will have over marketing, the answer is: plenty. However, transcripts from the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Southern District of New York, where the Chrysler case is being heard, proved for the first time that the task force at least understands that advertising is a necessary expense — even if it doesn’t think Chrysler needs $134 million for nine weeks of car ads. (continued after link)
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So it’s come to this. Anything worth managing is worth MICROmanaging – at least in the ObamaNation. Read the rest of this entry »
Believe it or not, this is not a joke…I’m not kidding. It’s not hype. And it’s not make-believe. Now when you’re talking about Trillion-dollar budgets and bailouts, I realize that 1/3 of a million dollars is probably chicken feed, inside the Beltway at least. But to paraphrase Senator Everitt Dirksen (R-IL), a third of a million here, and a third of a million there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money. So how can I save the U.S. Taxpayers some major coin? Simple. Read the rest of this entry »
NOTE: This is – ordinarily – a marketing blog. I try (sort of) to keep politics out of it. But today, I believe we are faced with something that is too important to ignore, for it trumps marketing, along with everything else. I am speaking of the imminent threat of Socialism in America. Therefore, I am temporarily suspending my moratorium on political topics to bring you the following editorial.
Another guy who "got it."
There’s something happening here. You can feel it in the air. You can see it on people’s faces, hear it in their voices. Change. And I don’t mean the kind of B.S. “Change” that we saw on Obama’s campaign posters. I mean the kind of change that changes the course of a nation. And the tipping point is this afternoon.
I’m a conservative. A proud conservative. And I believe this country is, frankly, going to Hell in a hand-basket. Sadly, this started long before Obama took office. While I believe that George Bush the Younger is a principled, Godly man, too many things that happened on his watch ran contrary to my conservative principles. That was bad. This is worse: since Obama took office, the country is on a toboggan ride, downhill towards Socialism. Spending like drunken sailors (no offense to our Navy, guys – it’s just an expression), Congress seems content to fiddle while the U.S.A. burns. No program is stupid enough, wacky enough, or costly enough to deny it funding, while even the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office warns that most of the “stimulus” they’ve passed will not only fail to stimulate the economy, but will in fact prolong the recession. Obama has acknowledged as such, even back as far as the campaign days. When asked about his plan to tax capital gains even when it’s been proven, time and time again, that this will have a detrimental effect on the economy, he replied, “But it’s the right thing to do.”
Bait and Switch. If you’re not familiar, it’s a term that refers to the rather slimy practice of selling a prospect on one product/service/idea, and then changing what you deliver, after the agreement is in place. It might be claiming that a product on eBay is “new” or “like new” when in fact, it turns out to be used. It might be a car salesman that promises side-curtain airbags and a GPS/Radio, but when you take delivery, both features are missing. Or it might be a multi-billion dollar financial bailout that suddenly becomes a multi-TRILLION dollar pork barrel trough, with no accountability in sight.
Any way you slice it, it ain’t pretty.
So how does this happen? I blame a combination of opportunity, misplaced trust, a lack of negotiations in good faith, and the ever-popular “human nature.”
Take, for example, the TARP bailout. The cause? The illogic and over-extension of the financial markets had finally caught up with them. It seems that when you game the system (like the Dems did, to create a system where people that couldn’t afford to buy a home suddenly could, and those that could afford a modest home, suddenly could purchase more home than they could afford), the eventual result is those financially insolvent chickens eventually come home to roost. The effect? Our Congressional leadership railroaded a bailout bill through the House and Senate with no real oversight, and no real restrictions on what could be done with the money. While I believe the first plan (buy up all the bad debt for homes, sell the loans to lenders, use the money to cover the spread) was flawed, the fact that they abandoned that (in record time, I might add) and used the money to assume government control of the banking system, is a nightmare for any free-market capitalist.
The Bush and Obama administrations did a number on us all, by ramrodding the bill through Congress. But the effect of the mendacity and the bait and switch may have longer and more disastrous effects, both in th long and short terms. You see, Obama will have a grace period. But I doubt it will last as long as he expects – or hopes. And when positive results are not forthcoming, the people will be very unhappy. The media has sold the country on Obama’s “Change” mantra, and the idea that he can fix what’s wrong. Unfortunately for all of us, I seriously doubt he can. It’s a Herculean task, and history tells us that you simply can’t spend your way out of a recession/depression. Everything Obama has planned will attempt to do just that. His staff marketing team will do their best to sell us all on the infallibility of his plan. That’s to be expected. But when the plan doesn’t bear fruit, I expect we’ll see a bunch of dissatisfied voters waking up to the idea that they’ve been sold a bill of goods – not once, but twice.
Bait and Switch is no way to run a country. Misrepresent your plans, change directions in mid-execution, or simply lie…call it what you will, but the bottom line will always be a bunch of customers – or in this case citizens – that will be calling for the heads of those in charge. It’s true in marketing. It’s true in finance. And it’s especially true in government, because it his everybody in the wallet – and that’s a volatile target.
For the last few administrations, it’s been tres au courant for Presidents to declare themselves, “The __________ President.” For instance, President Bush had intended to be the “Education President.” Unfortunately for all of us, 9/11 happened and by necessity, he became the “War on Terror President.” That happens a lot. You don’t get to pick what you’ll be remembered for. I forget now what Bill Clinton wanted to be known as, but for evermore, he will be known as the “Intern Chaser President” or the “Sexual Predator President.” Ouch. I’m not a psychic (nor do I play one on TV), but I think I know how Obama will go down in history. I think he will become the “Marketing President., ”
If Ronald Reagan was the “Great Communicator” (and he was), I feel certain that Obama will go down in history as the “Great Persuader,” for it looks as if he will be the first President (and his, the first administration) to use marketing as a weapon, to get what they want.
If this doesn’t scare the Hell out of you, it should.
As a marketer, I realize the awesome power of persuasion, and the responsibility we have as marketers to do the right things for the right reasons. In retail marketing, the market itself has a tendency to correct any excesses. Go overboard with product claims, and you’ll see the public vote with their wallets — and you’ll be out of a job. Get caught lying, and your product will be shuffled off to the marketing equivalent of Siberia. But in political marketing, it’s pretty much an “all spin, all the time” kind of pursuit. I mean, what’s the difference in a “lie” and a “campaign promise?” Lies aren’t forgotten. Campaign promises are. So what happens if Obama and his posse continue to treat this as one big campaign? I’m afraid we’re in big trouble. I figured that, once Obama is sworn in, he’d have to produce actual results, as opposed to more smoke and mirrors. If they keep marketing to us, that may not be the case.
It will be interesting to see just how long this keeps up — and for how long it continues to work. But I’m afraid that, no matter how long it does, marketing will never be the same…and even worse, marketing will take the fall, when people realize that much of what they’ve been told is no more substantial than the smoke and mirrors of a Presidential campaign.
The gold standard in crisis marketing is the response to the Tylenol poisonings. The way Johnson & Johnson dealt with the crisis and it’s aftermath is now taught in university-level courses as the right way to deal with a crisis that threatens your company and your cash cow product.
What did J&J do right? First, they didn’t go into stonewalling mode. They aggressively dealt with the problem, taking not just the high road, but doing everything possible to insure the safety of the public at their own, considerable expense. To begin with, they pulled all the product from the shelves. Their share of the painkiller market dropped from 35% to 8%. In time, they relaunched the brand, with triple-safety seals to prevent product tampering, and mounted an aggressive P.R. and marketing campaign. The result? They bounced back within a year, to become the dominant brand in analgesics. Oddly, they never caught the poisoner. More oddly, it did no long-term damage to J&J or to the Tylenol brand.
You could argue that a Governor or President is primarily a crisis manager, at least in this day and age. Of course, when you bring crises upon yourself, you’re either supremely confident – or supremely stupid. Read the rest of this entry »
Let me get this out of the way first: I was wrong. I was wrong, because I thought that McCain would pull off a come-from-behind, skin-of-his-teeth victory, and keep the country from going over to the way of the far Left. Consider this my mea culpa.
There were some interesting insights that we can gleen from the election, however, as marketers. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve been watching the debates, suffering through the commercials, or just listening to the parties squawk, you’ve probably gotten the ide, as I have, that both McCain and Obama are humorless drones. McCain comes across as largely stiff and formal, while Obama strikes me as a slick, albeit empty suit. Then I watched the Al Smith Benefit in New York.
Appologies to Marshall McLuhan, but have you noticed what’s going on in the Presidential sweepstakes lately? The slogans, they are a-changin’, and when slogans change, you can bet your bottom contribution that there’s a major shakeup in the campaign strategies.
Early on, McCain latched onto the “Maverick” brand as his own. He doggedly trotted out his willingness to go against his own party, and be his own man. This consistency helped, but it was never the home run he was hoping for. Lately, he’s gone with “Country First” – a not-so-subtle jab at Barack “Citizen of the World” Obama.
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