chillysalsa
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2002
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Read this on the NYTimes site:
DETROIT -- ROBERT LUTZ, the cigar-wielding vice chairman
and product czar for General Motors, has said that G.M.
needs to stir passion by making "love them or hate them"
vehicles.
The Hummer, the current "it" sport utility vehicle in the
creeping culture war over the S.U.V., certainly fits the
bill.
In the latest in a string of exchanges in which
environmental groups and the auto industry have parried
parody with parody, the Sierra Club today will unveil
www.hummerdinger.com, a satirical broadside against G.M.'s
Hummer brand. The Web site, created by a boutique ad agency
in St. Louis called the Experiment, is in the mold of The
Onion, the popular humor Web site that features deadpan
delivery of absurdist news items.
"G.M. celebrates Hummer's state-of-the-art 1950's engine
technology with some of today's hottest stars" reads the
headline of what Hummerdinger.com bills as its top story,
adding that Fabian, Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon have been
lined up as pitchmen.
The site includes a quiz to see if you're a "Hummer hunk,"
a list of special accessories that include a custom horn
that plays "Ride of the Valkyries," and a place to send a
chiding note to G.M. by e-mail.
"The Hummer's tagline is `Like Nothing Else.' But it should
be `Pollutes Like Nothing Else,' " Daniel Becker, director
of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program,
said in a statement.
What does G.M. have to say to all of this?
"If you look
at what Hummer is, in terms of its impact on the fuel
emissions that vehicles put out, its sales are 0.5 of 1
percent of the U.S. vehicle market," said Pete Ternes, a
spokesman for Hummer. "So if you consider that little
factoid, what they're trying to do is use the popular image
of Hummer to promote their cause, which is a P.R. tactic.
There are much bigger fish to fry."
.
Hummers are the commercial version of the Humvee military
transport, featured on television in Middle Eastern
conflicts from the first Persian Gulf war right up to the
current conflict in Iraq. Humvees and Hummers are
manufactured by AM General, a privately held company in
South Bend, Ind., but G.M. owns the rights to the Hummer
brand.
Hummer's relatively new H2 sport utility, a yuppie-friendly
Hummer that starts at about $50,000, has been Detroit's
hottest-selling luxury item for the last year. But there
have been some signs of a cooling off.
Until recently, the H2 was the only vehicle Detroit seemed
to be able to sell without any incentives. But this month,
G.M. began offering discounts to clear out its 2003 models,
it said, before the 2004 models go on sale in September.
"This model year close-out was part of the business plan
from the beginning," said Wendy Orthman, a Hummer
spokeswoman. "It's a normal part of the business."
H2's supply has increased from only 13 days ahead of demand
in the first months it went on sale a year ago to a more
moderate 60- to 70-day supply. The company sold 2,445 H2's
last month, its lowest sales for a full month.
"We're up from that this month," Mr. Ternes said. "We
expect someplace closer to 3,000" in July.
Peter DeLorenzo, a former Detroit ad man who is now a
consultant for the Chrysler Group, said of parody ads like
Hummerdinger: "The fringes are the only place where it
matters. Ultimately, people buy what they want to buy
depending on their financial situation and what turns them
on. I don't think the battle between the pro-S.U.V. people
and the anti-S.U.V. people, in the end, matters at all."
Michael Bernacchi, a marketing professor at the University
of Detroit Mercy, said anti-S.U.V. campaigns, cumulatively,
compelled the industry to keep such issues in mind.
"It forces dialogue," he said, adding "nobody can put
together any car today without people in the company being
devil's advocates about what the reaction is going to be."
.
The Sierra Club previously attacked the Ford
Excursion, a 19-foot-long, 3 1/2-ton S.U.V. that it called
the Ford Valdez - and crowed last year when Ford said it
would discontinue the vehicle. More recently, Arianna
Huffington, the pundit and columnist, backed a TV campaign
linking S.U.V.'s with financing terrorism because of their
high gas consumption. And a small evangelical group started
a "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign that was much
discussed.
On the industry side, a wave of advertising in Capitol Hill
publications and newspapers in crucial states surrounded a
failed Senate effort last year to increase fuel economy
standards. In one ad, a farmer was depicted worrying that
increasing fuel economy would mean hauling hay in
subcompact cars instead of pickups.
More recently, an S.U.V. group run by one of the industry's
leading public relations firms ran a "What Would Jesús
Drive?" campaign featuring a man named Jesús Rivera who
drives an S.U.V.
For G.M., Hummers are a profit center in an era of rapidly
diminishing profits - and jobs - in the automaking
business.
For environmental groups, the Hummer is an extreme example
of what they see as a broader problem. With growing S.U.V.
sales, the fuel economy of the average new vehicle sold in
the United States fell to 20.4 miles a gallon in the 2002
model year, the last year for which complete sales data is
available. That was a 22-year low.
The centerpiece of Hummerdinger.com is an animated video
parody of the entrancing Hummer TV ads. One scene shows a
Hummer driver strangled by anaconda-like gas pump hoses as
money flies out of his pockets. In another, a bald, jowly
figure labeled "G.M executive" steps in front of the
Hummer's window mileage sticker, bellowing, "You don't need
to see that."
The depiction is wrong on two counts. G.M.'s top executives
have their hair largely intact. And Hummers are so heavy
they fall outside of the normal fuel economy regulations
that govern cars and most S.U.V.'s. G.M. is not even
required to post the mileage of Hummers.
DETROIT -- ROBERT LUTZ, the cigar-wielding vice chairman
and product czar for General Motors, has said that G.M.
needs to stir passion by making "love them or hate them"
vehicles.
The Hummer, the current "it" sport utility vehicle in the
creeping culture war over the S.U.V., certainly fits the
bill.
In the latest in a string of exchanges in which
environmental groups and the auto industry have parried
parody with parody, the Sierra Club today will unveil
www.hummerdinger.com, a satirical broadside against G.M.'s
Hummer brand. The Web site, created by a boutique ad agency
in St. Louis called the Experiment, is in the mold of The
Onion, the popular humor Web site that features deadpan
delivery of absurdist news items.
"G.M. celebrates Hummer's state-of-the-art 1950's engine
technology with some of today's hottest stars" reads the
headline of what Hummerdinger.com bills as its top story,
adding that Fabian, Pat Boone and Frankie Avalon have been
lined up as pitchmen.
The site includes a quiz to see if you're a "Hummer hunk,"
a list of special accessories that include a custom horn
that plays "Ride of the Valkyries," and a place to send a
chiding note to G.M. by e-mail.
"The Hummer's tagline is `Like Nothing Else.' But it should
be `Pollutes Like Nothing Else,' " Daniel Becker, director
of the Sierra Club's global warming and energy program,
said in a statement.
What does G.M. have to say to all of this?
"If you look
at what Hummer is, in terms of its impact on the fuel
emissions that vehicles put out, its sales are 0.5 of 1
percent of the U.S. vehicle market," said Pete Ternes, a
spokesman for Hummer. "So if you consider that little
factoid, what they're trying to do is use the popular image
of Hummer to promote their cause, which is a P.R. tactic.
There are much bigger fish to fry."
.
Hummers are the commercial version of the Humvee military
transport, featured on television in Middle Eastern
conflicts from the first Persian Gulf war right up to the
current conflict in Iraq. Humvees and Hummers are
manufactured by AM General, a privately held company in
South Bend, Ind., but G.M. owns the rights to the Hummer
brand.
Hummer's relatively new H2 sport utility, a yuppie-friendly
Hummer that starts at about $50,000, has been Detroit's
hottest-selling luxury item for the last year. But there
have been some signs of a cooling off.
Until recently, the H2 was the only vehicle Detroit seemed
to be able to sell without any incentives. But this month,
G.M. began offering discounts to clear out its 2003 models,
it said, before the 2004 models go on sale in September.
"This model year close-out was part of the business plan
from the beginning," said Wendy Orthman, a Hummer
spokeswoman. "It's a normal part of the business."
H2's supply has increased from only 13 days ahead of demand
in the first months it went on sale a year ago to a more
moderate 60- to 70-day supply. The company sold 2,445 H2's
last month, its lowest sales for a full month.
"We're up from that this month," Mr. Ternes said. "We
expect someplace closer to 3,000" in July.
Peter DeLorenzo, a former Detroit ad man who is now a
consultant for the Chrysler Group, said of parody ads like
Hummerdinger: "The fringes are the only place where it
matters. Ultimately, people buy what they want to buy
depending on their financial situation and what turns them
on. I don't think the battle between the pro-S.U.V. people
and the anti-S.U.V. people, in the end, matters at all."
Michael Bernacchi, a marketing professor at the University
of Detroit Mercy, said anti-S.U.V. campaigns, cumulatively,
compelled the industry to keep such issues in mind.
"It forces dialogue," he said, adding "nobody can put
together any car today without people in the company being
devil's advocates about what the reaction is going to be."
.
The Sierra Club previously attacked the Ford
Excursion, a 19-foot-long, 3 1/2-ton S.U.V. that it called
the Ford Valdez - and crowed last year when Ford said it
would discontinue the vehicle. More recently, Arianna
Huffington, the pundit and columnist, backed a TV campaign
linking S.U.V.'s with financing terrorism because of their
high gas consumption. And a small evangelical group started
a "What Would Jesus Drive?" campaign that was much
discussed.
On the industry side, a wave of advertising in Capitol Hill
publications and newspapers in crucial states surrounded a
failed Senate effort last year to increase fuel economy
standards. In one ad, a farmer was depicted worrying that
increasing fuel economy would mean hauling hay in
subcompact cars instead of pickups.
More recently, an S.U.V. group run by one of the industry's
leading public relations firms ran a "What Would Jesús
Drive?" campaign featuring a man named Jesús Rivera who
drives an S.U.V.
For G.M., Hummers are a profit center in an era of rapidly
diminishing profits - and jobs - in the automaking
business.
For environmental groups, the Hummer is an extreme example
of what they see as a broader problem. With growing S.U.V.
sales, the fuel economy of the average new vehicle sold in
the United States fell to 20.4 miles a gallon in the 2002
model year, the last year for which complete sales data is
available. That was a 22-year low.
The centerpiece of Hummerdinger.com is an animated video
parody of the entrancing Hummer TV ads. One scene shows a
Hummer driver strangled by anaconda-like gas pump hoses as
money flies out of his pockets. In another, a bald, jowly
figure labeled "G.M executive" steps in front of the
Hummer's window mileage sticker, bellowing, "You don't need
to see that."
The depiction is wrong on two counts. G.M.'s top executives
have their hair largely intact. And Hummers are so heavy
they fall outside of the normal fuel economy regulations
that govern cars and most S.U.V.'s. G.M. is not even
required to post the mileage of Hummers.
