This is not about the Aircar and the claim it can be operated on energy cost of some $2 for 100 miles.
It is about a hybrid for which the advertising makes it difficult to gather interest, customers, or fans. Cut to the chase here.
Trying to verify the Aircar operating cost claim, I revisited a technology I had read about years ago: Quasiturbine, a compressed air motor. Browsed to Gizmag and its image gallery, adorned with an intriguing ad for a hybrid vehicle. Curious, I clicked it, only to go through a remarkably dumbfounding experience and end up sharing the spoils. Talk about a punch in the face.
Irreverent Story
Now, what does Chrysler mean, "...Responsibility of a Hybrid Vehicle"? Click on the ad above to follow my clicksteps, or read on for my take on it.
Outsmarted
Click through and you land on the Chrysler main site, here a piece in its original size and glory: Page not found.
The click is paid for, why do they leave visitors stranded at Page not found? And this for the car named in the ad on gizmag.com! Too bad. Shift happens. They make you scan and search, so I note (here for all to see) these smarter marketers simply disrespect my time and interest. Broken.
Try again. Find the tiny link to the "Chrysler Aspen" and click through. See this 19MPG badge on the right?
Is that progress? In the early '90s you could rent a Ford Taurus for vacation, load it with suitcases and get 30MPG, at the pump. If you inflated the tires well and knew how to drive smoothly.
Try to SELECT A VEHICLE.
Ah, there it is. "Chrysler Aspen Hybrid" and click. Follow the story of how Chrysler managed to outsmart and outmarket a person with a genuine interest in their product - at a time they can ill afford wasting potential new car buyers.
Hello? Are you still there?
After an "enter the lab" graphics to mask the load time (warning: bandwidth hog), a lady actor in a lab coat breezes around by video overlay to greet you, talk at you, then gets out of the way. Novelty? Yes, but a tad, um, obnoxious.
As you search those hard-to-read color buttons for hints to find the hybrid's MPG (its main selling point, no?) do not move the mouse. Said lady returns, inquiring "Hello? Are you still there?"
What? Pause from the fruitless search for the MPG spec, and she appears again, to shine that small flashlight at you through the camera (click on image for full size) and to knock the monitor glass... And more, just watch. Hilariously helpless. And, oh, don't move the mouse.
This is real, live, canned, almost cunning ... interruption marketing. A way to "manage customer experience" and make me feel like an idiot, a camel, breaking a potential future customer's last straw of interest. Outsmarted, outmanaged and outmarketed at http://www.chrysler.com/en/2009/aspen/hybrid/
What do these outmarketers really want?
They got a reader's interest, studying their ad in search for the hybrid's hidden MPG figure and then blow it by unhelpful interruption and arrogance. Hugh McLeod is right. Just leave me alone!
Illustration by Hugh McLeod, Gaping Void
I really feel like punching them in the face, and if enough people read and spread this, perhaps, yes we can.
How could it be done better?
At least a little bit? Check out the quick overlay video appearance at this mom&pop cycling specialty shop http://www.reversegearinc.com/
Or read The Communis Manifesto by .
Conclusion
Looks like a good time for the Chrysler outmarketers to study "Reality Check" by Guy Kawasaki.
On page 402 he quotes Sutton's dirty-dozen list of everyday asshole actions. I give this hybrid ad experience an 8 out of 12 orifices.
Recent Comments