By Marty Padgett
November 29th, 2005
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The worst-laid plans of mice and men seem to roughly coincide with GM’s marketing initiatives. You remember last year’s
brilliant Oprah stunt with the new
Pontiac G6 — and the tax problems and the unavailability of the car at GM’s dealers, right?
Now GM has hitched the
Buick Lucerne’s fate to Martha Stewart’s version of
The Apprentice. And while you have to admire Martha’s pluck in going directly from jail to hosting her own Trump knockoff (and her own daytime show and Sirius radio channel), you have to feel for GM’s uncanny knack for missing the cultural zeitgeist boat. Stewart’s shows have been ratings sluggards since her release from jail and home confinement — and GM needs anything but lackluster numbers as it promotes the
Lucerne, the big new front-driver that’s carrying much of the beleaguered brand’s future on its broad shoulders. With the news that Stewart’s already been denied a second season interning with the Donald, the
Lucerne belatedly becomes Martha’s official
Apprentice vehicle this week with various promotions leading shoppers to the
Buick.com Web site and to a series of “
Lucerne VIP Premiere Parties” across the country.
Whether GM needs to spend so much effort planning such huge marketing coups, only to have them overthrown by the unpredictable, is up for debate. This one seems to be headed to the dustbin along with the new
Saab campaign we complained about yesterday. But there’s one keen takeaway here, at least: grab a copy of the 20-page guide that
Buick and Martha Stewart Living are putting out along with the promotion. Because you’re never too old to learn how to make a cloth napkin into a swan, right?
Tags: Shoppers, Reviews, Industry
Posted in: 2009, Buick, Lucerne
By Marty Padgett
November 28th, 2005
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Indy Racing League starlet and subject of much-heated debate Danica Patrick recently added a new title to her growing resume: Mrs. Patrick, the Associated Press reports, was wed recently to 40-year-old physical therapist Paul Hospenthal. The 23-year-old Patrick has kept quiet about the ceremony, asking her Rahal Letterman Racing team not to release information about the ceremony. Earlier this year, Patrick’s future husband told
People magazine she doesn’t spend much time watching racing when off the course. Instead Patrick — who Hospenthal met in physical therapy for a yoga injury — is “kind of a TV junkie.”
Tags: Shoppers, Industry, Reviews, Enthusiasts
By Marty Padgett
November 28th, 2005
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Celebrity un-American Michael Moore is at it again — and fortunately, unlike his nasty, incoherent, and manipulative attempts at filmmaking, his recent appearance on local radio in Flint, Mich., was only an hour’s worth of misinformation, disinformation, and outright lies.
Moore showed up on Supertalk1570 in Flint to ride General Motors once again over its coming factory closures. Never mind that the painful news was done quickly and clearly to stop the endless speculation of even more drastic cuts. Moore, whose documentary
Roger and Me garnered critical praise two decades ago despite its inaccuracies, cynically and cruelly charged on the Dave Barber show that GM made its big plant-closing announcement right before the holidays to “paralyze” employees into inaction.
Ironically, Moore said on the show that it was GM’s “arrogance and stupidity” that led them into their financial situation. Having been charged with the same crimes, it’s easy to see why Moore cannot comprehend the fundamental economics of, and rationale behind, GM’s decision to shut down three assembly plants and cut production elsewhere. Moore, along with many in the domestic auto industry, fails to see how unions are culpable in the insupportable cost structure of U.S. auto industry — through job banks, benefits better than those in any industry in America, and a sense of entitlement greater than the sense of gratitude for good work at a decent wage.
Of course, Moore rambled on the radio show over the course of an hour on the various imagined sins of the Bush administration, re-running his own shameful performance at the Academy Awards. The connection? In Moore's world, there doesn't have to be one to disseminate his anti-corporate, anti-Bush propaganda.
Perhaps one day we’ll all grow tired of Moore in the same way we’ve turned off Cindy Sheehan’s antics, now that her honest heartfelt sentiment has been totally confounded by illogical pursuits and perverted by mean-spirited politics. But until then, it seems Moore’s long and well-earned silence is over. I pity those who can’t tune him out.
—Marty Padgett
Tags: Reviews, Shoppers, Enthusiasts
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