Everything “Old” Is “New” Again

By Curvin O’Rielly

In 1982, when I was a young creative director at BBDO in New York, I was asked to write an article about the automobile business for Magazine Age.

The article was well received. I even won an American Business Press award for it. The question is, has it stood the test of time?

Well, some of the details I included in the article are as dated as the wide ties we used to wear (the ones you’re saving, hoping they come back into style again), or the disco music we used to listen to (admit it; you boogeyed to disco), or the haul-ass iron we used to drive, the cars with more horsepower than their suspension systems and brakes could reasonably handle (unless they were well-engineered vehicles from Europe).

What’s still true about my article, unfortunately, is that the automobile industry is once again in deep trouble. This time, it’s poised at the abyss, owing in part to the economic tremors that came close to causing a complete meltdown. At the abyss, too, because it was smart (or so it prided itself) but then not smart enough. I mean, surely those at the wheel had to have seen all the danger signs on the road they were heading down, just as they had to have known they were racing toward a disaster of epic proportions.

That said, here are the observations I made 28 years ago, with some minor rewrites here and there.

•••

“Panic-Induced Mediocrity”

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 it not surviving is imaginable to some, though its demise is unlikely to ever occur. Nonetheless, 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. (And completely mangled it in the process.)
• 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, inasmuch as Mark Twain’s advice about facts and emotions was perfect: ‘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 blah blah, 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 the same 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.

In other words, 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: 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 didn’t seem 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.”

•••

So that’s what I wrote 28 year ago. It was an innocent world then. Print, radio, television; those were our tools, along with our ability to find a valuable piece of territory for a brand to settle and eventually own.

Everybody in adverting has a favorite story about Bill Bernbach, the legendary founder of the creative revolution. Mine is the one, possibly an apocryphal tale, about the day Nathan Orbach, founder of the eponymous department store, told Bernbach that he had a great idea.

“I got a great gimmick,” Orbach supposedly said. “Let’s tell the truth.”

Maybe we need that now. Truth instead of hype.

Curvin O’Rielly is a branding consultant who lives in Saratoga Springs, NY. His automobile advertising credits include working as a copywriter on the BMW and Saab accounts, as well as serving as creative director on the Saturn business during its successful launch. He can be reached at curvin.orielly@corllc.com.

News that Penske has backed out of the deal to purchase Saturn will ripple through the industry in a myriad of ways.  Detroit’s economy will be effected, thousands will lose their jobs, dealers and their employees are left scrambling.  These are the serious consequences of the deal blowing up.

Less serious, but no less real, is the fact that another automotive brand will disappear.  There was time when Saturn stood for something: “A different kind of car company.”  The promise of no haggle pricing and a dealer experience that was customer focussed and positive.  These attributes were foundation stones of a remarkable branding campaign:

These ideas and brilliant marketing created the essential ingredient of an automotive brand…brand advocates…..lots of them:

Unfortunately, Saturn proved the truth of something that an automotive client said to me years ago:  “Cameron, with all due respect to marketing, 80% of success in the car business is product, make a good product and people will buy it, don’t and the best marketing won’t make a difference.”  On one hand there is real wisdom in this and the fact that GM starved Saturn for product for so many years proves the point.

However, Saturn was a brand that stood for something.  I don’t think it matters much how it attained that status, the fact is Saturn was a brand that had an ethos.  I was hopeful, even confident, that Penske would be able to revive the brand and rebuild it.  Unfortunately he couldn’t reach an agreement with Nissan/Renault to supply product.  Once again, that “truth” about product rears it’s head and Saturn the brand is the loser.

In an industry, where there are so few strong brands it’s a real shame when a good one is allowed to whither and die.  We need to take our brands more seriously and take better care of them.  Without brands, we’re just selling transportation.

This week it was announced that Roger Penske had cut a deal to buy the Saturn brand from General Motors.  What a terrific development for Saturn and the Saturn brand.

A few weeks ago I was with a GM marketing guy and he made the observation that “you can tell that finance guys made all the decisions about the future of GM, because marketing folks would have kept Saturn and Hummer.”

The point he was making is that a marketing person would have recognized the inherent value in the Saturn and Hummer brands.  It looks like Hummer is going to get a second chance with a new Chinese owner and it remains to be seen if Hummer can successfully navigate changing consumer sensibilities to build a solid and profitable business in the US.

Saturn on the other hand grabbed the brass ring.

Much has been written about how Hal Riney created a great automotive brand image for Saturn and how years of product neglect by GM made it impotent in the marketplace.  Most recently Saturn has gotten some new product which is highly regarded and that has helped immensely.  The Saturn distribution network has always been one of the industry’s best and now they have the Penske organization behind them.

Penske understands what it takes to be successful.  The fact that they bought the Saturn brand and distribution network while dodging the factories speaks volumes.  Saturn will now get product from any number of international manufacturers and not have to deal with the GM cost structure.  Sounds like suddenly Saturn may be able to do something it never could under GM…make a profit.

That’s great in and of itself, but here’s the thing I’m excited about.  This is a chance to resuscitate and reinvent the Saturn brand.  It’s a chance to make it the powerful force that it could have been years ago had it not been neglected.  What a great opportunity for all the people involved with Saturn and Saturn marketing.

As a marketing guy, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a more exciting automotive job than as part of the Penske team that will rebuild the Saturn brand.

Sign me up, rebuilding the Saturn brand would be a great gig.