Thursday, May 22, 2008

Do you know anyone who drives a Pontiac?


Lately, I've been seeing a fair amount of advertising online for Pontiac and, I think it was yesterday, though it seems like a month ago, I read an article about Jimmy Kimmel doing a live Pontiac spot.

Does this make any sense? Ads for Pontiac remind me of the Mark Twain apocrypha, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." In other words, Pontiac ads can only inform the viewer that the Pontiac brand is still in existence. But the brand itself is so far gone, no ad, no matter how good, is capable of resuscitating it--and the ads are far from compelling.

Here's some data for you: "Bloomberg is reporting that Pontiac sales could fall to just 250,000 units annually, and the GM brand might drop as many as 4 products. Pontiac was once the No. 3 nameplate in the nation, behind Ford and Chevy. In 2006, it ranked No. 13 behind Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Honda, Dodge, Nissan, Chrysler, Jeep, GMC and Hyundai." It is probably even worse off now that it's 2008.

So some questions:
Do you know anyone who drives one (except as a rental.)
Do you know anyone who wants one.
Do you know anyone who turns their head to look at one.
Do you know anyone who knows what a Pontiac is.

Someone, somehow needs to create BL* for Pontiac.
Or GM should just pull the plug on it.

*BL--believable lust.

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