curious: did you write ‘the ultimate driving machine’?

if not, please tell me who did. I’m working for a marketing guy who claims he wrote it – pure fiction, but i’d like to know anyway.

thanks so much,
rick

Here’s an article I wrote for Magazine Age in March, 1982.

“Panic-Induced Mediocrity”
By Curvin O’Rielly

“When I took on the task of writing this article, it seemed easy enough. After all, I’ve written hundreds of ads. Many of them long, fact-filled, carefully reasoned pieces of copy about cars. Labors of love, really. And who could doubt my personal involvement in the product? I’ve owned 18 cars in my life, including one just for racing.

“The more I mulled over the possibilities, however, the more it seemed as if I’d only be giving the same critique of automobile advertising that everybody else does.

“But then, on January 26, 1982, the day this article was written, I looked at my two morning newspapers. On page 4 of The New York Times business section was a news report headlined, ‘Auto Sales by Big 3 Down 14%.’

“And next to a similar report on page 6 in The Wall Street Journal was a story headlined ‘Board of DeLorean to Discuss Finances; Auto Maker Denies Its Survival Is at Stake.’

“One word jumped out at me: ‘survival.’ Not so much for its use in the DeLorean Motor Cars situation or how it may relate to the rest of the auto business, but how it impacts automobile advertising.

“Given the fact that the auto business is in the midst of its worst continuous sales slump in years, the threat of not surviving is for some, if not close, at least imaginable. The mere threat alone has caused some people to panic. Not hysterically so, but certainly with a degree of nervousness. And inarguably that
nervousness has resulted in a certain amount of mediocrity in auto advertising.

‘To be completely fair, mediocre advertising is probably the least crucial factor of all the parts that make up the current auto sales problem, but mediocre advertising is also the only factor that is quickly and easily controlled.

“What’s wrong, specifically?

“• ‘Marshmallow’ strategies that may have been appropriate when the market was booming but seem highly inappropriate now that the universe of car buyers is shrinking. More strategies need to be written with a “take no prisoners” goal.

“• Executions that look as if it’s business as usual; that don’t address the consumer’s current concerns.

“• The visible hand of too many authors. Copy, in other words, that reads as though a committee of hacks wrote it. No, completely mangled it.

“• A lack of adherence to the basics of advertising.

“Let’s dwell on that last point. Advertising, the basics say, is no more than salesmanship in print. The job of art and copy is to tell consumers what a product is and why they need it or should want it above all other choices.

“Facts should matter, but emotions should matter more, keeping Mark Twain’s quote in mind: “Emotions are among the toughest things to manufacture out of whole cloth; it is easier to manufacture seven facts than one emotion.”

“At the moment in automobile print advertising, however, the emotional part – creativity – has increasingly become the skill of ornamentation and copywriting the craft of obfuscation. The auto industry has a story to tell but the message isn’t coming through.

“Go to any magazine and study the car ads. A good percentage of them are written as through a random recitation of available features constitutes a powerful sales argument. How many times, for example, have you read “rack-and-pinion steering” in a car ad? Or seen the phrase “MacPherson struts”? Hundreds, probably. But can you explain the advantage of either of those engineering features? You can’t, can you? Neither can the millions of potential car buyers reading car ads.

“And those aren’t the only empty phrases in auto copy. Here’s an assortment of other phrases lacking in horsepower, all chosen without bias from the current crop of auto ads: “automotive breakthrough of the decade”; “first-class opulence”; “quick-handling… road-hugging… responsive”; “nimble… easy to
maneuver… with a smooth, refined ride”; “escape to where you long to be”; “tomorrow’s technology…”; and so on.

“Copy like this – copy written with such meaningless phrases leads to erroneous conclusions by the reader, if they lead to a conclusion at all.

“Graphic gymnastics has taken the place of substantive thought in art direction. Is “punk/nouveau” anymore than a graphic gimmick? Of course it isn’t. So why such dependence on it? Why so many ads with silver as a fifth color? Why so many charts and illustrations against graph-paper backgrounds? Why are so
many of the photos of car in ads presented in so many cliché-ridden poses? Is there really only one way to photograph a car? Only one angle to use? If an element of design isn’t contributing to the message, eliminate it.

“These are tough times in the car business and, therefore, tough times in the automobile advertising business as well. There’s only one way to proceed: sanely.

“Don’t panic in the face of the enormity of the task. Recognize that selling the heritage and value of, say, Chevrolet is infinitely more rewarding long-term than selling a model name like Bel Air, Impala, Biscayne – all names, by the way, that have disappeared. [Update note: Chevy brought the Impala back.]

“Recognize that there is a long-term. Invest in ideas. Good ideas survive bad executions, but the worst idea cannot be saved by the most brilliant execution.

“Finally, recognize that ‘the way it’s always been done’ may have sold cars only because almost anything sold cars when everybody was employed, when interest rates were manageable, when ‘sticker shock’ didn’t exist, when it didn’t cost so much to just live, and when the future wasn’t quite so cloudy.

“Further panic will only yield further mediocrity. And then the cycle will only escalate. Unless… well, unless something wonderful happens. Unless the people responsible for doing auto ads and the people responsible for approving auto ads begin to stand up, one by one, and say “enough.”

“I, for one, am waiting for it to happen. It has to happen. Given my admittedly narrow perspective of the American economy, they have to do it or we’ll all be up the creek.

(Postscript: My article is dated. So you can add and subract details here and there from it. But what you’re left with is a catetegorial need for automomobile makers to stop being wimpy world-class navel gazers and for them to gird themselves for the hard days ahead. Everybody in adverting has a favorite story about Bill Bernbach, the legendary founder of the creative revolution. Mine is the day Nathan Orbach, founder of the eponymous department store, told Bernbach that he had a great idea. “Let tell them the truth,” he said. Maybe we need truth now instead of hype.

My guess is that the original work for Mercedes-Benz and BMW didn’t get mentioned because it was considered old or because the directors decided they’s covered the “genre” with VW. Those were great campaigns that built great brands. Personally I feel they’ve languished in recent years. The original Saturn work started a brand off on a terrific path, only to have screwed up by GM.

My point was not that no great work has been done in the automotive category, there most certainly has been.

My real point is that automotive is a category with large budgets, high levels of interest, and cool products. Those things should be the building blocks that enable solid strategy and great work over the long-term, but haven’t. That’s a shame and we should ask ourselves “why?” so we can fix it.

BTW, thanks for commenting.

For the American automobile business to pull out of its current death spiral, I think we should set aside our collective admiration for spectacular, one-off commercials like Honda’s “Cog” and “Hate Something/Change Something” and instead focus on good, solid, meaningful strategic thinking. Thinking so simple it can only lead to creative work car buyers can understand, not to mention creative work that will last a while and thus accrue some value for the brands we work on.

Please don’t misunderstand me, Cameron. I’m not opposed to spectacular creative work. I’m just saying that a great strategy poorly executed is infinitely more powerful over the long haul than a mediocre strategy presented brilliantly. Best, of course, is a great strategy that’s brilliantly executed and then defended – defended inasmuch as there are always mini minds who want to rip up strategies or tinker with executions.