MARK PHELAN: Chevy, Toyota claim sales lead
Their TV ads tout best-seller status in a duel over truth
June 21, 2005
BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Figures lie, and liars figure.
The old men drinking Coke on the porch of the general store used to say that when I was a kid in Thomasville, Ga., and it's still true today.
Chevrolet and Toyota each claimed to be the best-selling line of passenger cars in the United States in 2004 in TV commercials that aired within minutes of each other during a Pistons playoff game last week.
Somebody's lying here.
First place is not divisible in this race, and the distance between first and second is measured in money and jobs.
Bragging rights for sales translate to corporate profit and jobs on the assembly line. They also add up to a spring in the engineers' step, confidence in the salesperson's pitch and pride in the company you work for.
"Statements like that encourage people to shop at our dealers and consider our cars," Toyota Motor Corp. spokesman John McCandless said of the ad.
Equally, "it's important to Chevrolet and our dealer body," spokesman Joe Jacuzzi said. "It's definitely important. If you're selling well, it shows that consumers believe in your products."
Claiming leadership can put a brand on buyers' shopping lists, said Joe Phillippi, principal of AutoTrends Consulting Inc. in Short Hills, N.J.
"It can get buyers to spend more time on the Internet looking through your model line," he said. "I don't think claiming to be the best-seller convinces anybody to buy a car, but it gets them to consider your brand."
Sales leadership is also important enough that General Motors Corp. once cooked the books in order to claim Cadillac was the best-selling luxury brand in the United States.
In one of the most embarrassing moments in Cadillac's century-plus history, the brand claimed 4,773 fictitious sales in 1998. That gave Cadillac a 300-car margin over Lincoln for the year, but GM was forced to apologize publicly to Ford Motor Co. and its Lincoln brand when the fraud became apparent.
Nothing that egregious happened here, but there was the definite scent of mendacity in the room after the two commercials aired.
"It all depends on how you manipulate the data," Phillippi said. "You can make a lot of claims depending on how you define your terms."
Chevrolet defines its terms pretty simply. It counted all cars with Chevy's bow tie badge that it sold in calendar 2004.
By that measure, Chevrolet clearly was the best-selling line of cars in the United States last year. It sold 917,887 cars, while Toyota delivered 865,832 cars wearing its stylized "T" badge.
To make its leadership claim defensible, Toyota combined sales by the Toyota and Scion brands. Toyota sold 99,259 Scion cars in 2004.
Scion is the mini-brand Toyota launched two years ago to win young buyers who think they are too cool to drive a Camry or a Corolla.
Toyota treats Scion as a separate brand when it suits the company's purposes, including in the sales numbers it releases to the media each month. But not all Toyota dealers are allowed to sell Scion's funky model line, and the Toyota consumer Web site, www.toyota.com, does not list any of Scion's models under the link to Toyota cars. Scion shows up in small print at the bottom of the homepage, not far from a link to "your privacy rights."
Toyota defines Scion as part of the Toyota division, despite the fact that Scion's three quirky little cars have their own logo and a carefully crafted strategy to create a unique appeal for the brand.
Continue Reading... http://www.freep.com/money/autoreviews/phelan21e_20050621.htm
Their TV ads tout best-seller status in a duel over truth
June 21, 2005
BY MARK PHELAN
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Figures lie, and liars figure.
The old men drinking Coke on the porch of the general store used to say that when I was a kid in Thomasville, Ga., and it's still true today.
Chevrolet and Toyota each claimed to be the best-selling line of passenger cars in the United States in 2004 in TV commercials that aired within minutes of each other during a Pistons playoff game last week.
Somebody's lying here.
First place is not divisible in this race, and the distance between first and second is measured in money and jobs.
Bragging rights for sales translate to corporate profit and jobs on the assembly line. They also add up to a spring in the engineers' step, confidence in the salesperson's pitch and pride in the company you work for.
"Statements like that encourage people to shop at our dealers and consider our cars," Toyota Motor Corp. spokesman John McCandless said of the ad.
Equally, "it's important to Chevrolet and our dealer body," spokesman Joe Jacuzzi said. "It's definitely important. If you're selling well, it shows that consumers believe in your products."
Claiming leadership can put a brand on buyers' shopping lists, said Joe Phillippi, principal of AutoTrends Consulting Inc. in Short Hills, N.J.
"It can get buyers to spend more time on the Internet looking through your model line," he said. "I don't think claiming to be the best-seller convinces anybody to buy a car, but it gets them to consider your brand."
Sales leadership is also important enough that General Motors Corp. once cooked the books in order to claim Cadillac was the best-selling luxury brand in the United States.
In one of the most embarrassing moments in Cadillac's century-plus history, the brand claimed 4,773 fictitious sales in 1998. That gave Cadillac a 300-car margin over Lincoln for the year, but GM was forced to apologize publicly to Ford Motor Co. and its Lincoln brand when the fraud became apparent.
Nothing that egregious happened here, but there was the definite scent of mendacity in the room after the two commercials aired.
"It all depends on how you manipulate the data," Phillippi said. "You can make a lot of claims depending on how you define your terms."
Chevrolet defines its terms pretty simply. It counted all cars with Chevy's bow tie badge that it sold in calendar 2004.
By that measure, Chevrolet clearly was the best-selling line of cars in the United States last year. It sold 917,887 cars, while Toyota delivered 865,832 cars wearing its stylized "T" badge.
To make its leadership claim defensible, Toyota combined sales by the Toyota and Scion brands. Toyota sold 99,259 Scion cars in 2004.
Scion is the mini-brand Toyota launched two years ago to win young buyers who think they are too cool to drive a Camry or a Corolla.
Toyota treats Scion as a separate brand when it suits the company's purposes, including in the sales numbers it releases to the media each month. But not all Toyota dealers are allowed to sell Scion's funky model line, and the Toyota consumer Web site, www.toyota.com, does not list any of Scion's models under the link to Toyota cars. Scion shows up in small print at the bottom of the homepage, not far from a link to "your privacy rights."
Toyota defines Scion as part of the Toyota division, despite the fact that Scion's three quirky little cars have their own logo and a carefully crafted strategy to create a unique appeal for the brand.
Continue Reading... http://www.freep.com/money/autoreviews/phelan21e_20050621.htm