Marketing *safety testing*?!?!?! Huh?

[tritium]

http://www.seewhathappens.com/aa_results.html

from SeeWhatHappens.com

Swerving to dodge a bowling ball is one thing. Maintaining control and safely returning to your lane is another. That's why in AMCI's tests measuring a vehicle's ability to abruptly change course, avoid an obstacle and immediately resume its original trajectory, our Galant GTS didn't just outclass the Toyota Camry XLE V6 and the Accord EX V6. It left them staring at its taillights.

Yeah, read that again. I'll wait...

Did you catch it?

Here's what bothers me: "That's why in AMCI's tests measuring a vehicle's ability to abruptly change course, ..."

"Who is AMCI" you ask? AMCI is the marketing firm that made the commercial we saw on the Super Bowl. You know, the one with the two sedans chasing the two box trucks while men throw assorted items into the sedans' paths. Yeah, that one. It is a pretty cool commercial, but I digress. The real issue here, is what was AMCI doing performing safety testing? Why are they billing it as actual safety testing?

Was the Mitsubishi (AMCI's client) going to actually *underperform* in the testing? I doubt it.

Isn't there some sort of ethical problem with this?

[Cordachine007]

It would appear that somebody else needs to fill that unemployment void with another pointless job. Auto makers already do a lot of testing on there own, so the AMCI's tests probably wont affect any consumers one way or another. If im looking at a new car, the last thing that im going to look at is weither it can dodge a box on the road better than a Camry!

[tritium]

Originally posted by Cordachine007
It would appear that somebody else needs to fill that unemployment void with another pointless job ... so the AMCI's tests probably wont affect any consumers one way or another.

So no one is watching and being influenced my commercials? Well, let's close down that useless industry.

There are people out there that would believe that Jenna Jameson was President of the United States if the television told them so. Give me a break... television is one of the most influential mediums humanity has ever seen and if there aren't any real checks in place, we'd have all sorts of outlandish claims coming at us from across the radio-spectrum.

And I can tell you, from personal experience, that safety *does* matter when it comes to making automotive purchases. Let's not forget the public outlash against Firestone tires, and Ford F150 trucks ...

The public *does* care about automotive safety and advertisers like AMCI only cloud the issue for consumers.

Pointless jobs? Safety engineers are pointless? Give me a break. Seriously, what do you drive?

[phredgreen]

the basic idea behind the commercial and the so-called "deception" serves to fool the buyer into beleiving that there was an extensive study done that showed that product A perfomed leaps and bounds higher than products B through F.

like you said, people will beleive pretty much anything their television tells them, so it's a brilliant marketing strategy.

the questions that needs to be answered is this: regardless of who paid the bill, was the test performed as a fair and impartial comparison? if so, then good for mitsu, their product came out on top. if the study was perfomred witha bias toward a particular product, then it becomes false advertising, and that is an issue worth pursuing.

if the full findings of this study can be found and analized, then it'd be an interesting excercise.

[tritium]

Originally posted by phredgreen
the questions that needs to be answered is this: regardless of who paid the bill, was the test performed as a fair and impartial comparison? if so, then good for mitsu, their product came out on top. if the study was perfomred witha bias toward a particular product, then it becomes false advertising, and that is an issue worth pursuing.

Precisely.

And, my concern was that since AMCI already had their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, could or *would* they have conducted an objective test? This is scarey territory to get into.

Should drug companies be allowed to present results from the advertising company's product tests? Its a bit extreme, but we'd have NyQuil for balding, Prozac for yeast infections, Nexium for depression, etc. Its a question that cuts to the core of advertising ethics. To what degree can you present results that you, as the advertiser, have generated?

I can setup an experiment in my own backyard that could prove (apparently enough to have an automotive commercial) that Toyota Tacoma trucks are better at cornering than Nissan Stanza's (not a truck, I know). The question isn't, "could I" but rather, "should I"? I'm definitely not qualified. I definitely don't know statistics, but I know who is paying me, hypothetically, to produce an ad. Its a matter of willingful deception...

How far should advertisers be allowed to push this envelope?

[Cynthetiq]

obviously no one ever questions JD Powers and Associates....


they come up with outrageous claims all the time... Best Sport Feel in it's class.... and other weirdness.

goes to remind one that they need to LISTEN and PAY attention

[teriaki]

Hell, TiVo everything. Don't watch commercials.

And I drive a Mini. Seems to be pretty good at getting back on course....But that's just my own personal "safety testing" I've been doing

[tritium]

"Best Sport Feel in it's class" is a lot different than asserting that your car is more adept at dodging boulders than another. I feel ya though.