Toyota Corolla Commercial in Australia

Toyota Corolla is the car with some of the best sales figures in Australia. So what does the company do, when they are on top, but still need to spend some money on advertising ? A very daring commercial with a kitten that thinks it “deserves” everything… Very good cinematography, but would something like that get you to buy the next Toyota Corolla ?

AUDI and the competition

With its new marketing strategy, Audi uses a card allowed on American soil: openly mocking competition to promote its product. The firm has imagined and created a mini series of Internet advertising called "Meet the Beckers."

If you haven't met the Beckers, you should now. In late September, a three minute video gave a look inside the life of the Becker family, preparing for their annual Thanksgiving tradition. Initiated by Audi, the family features several stereotype car drivers. Daddy drives a Mercedes, brother a convertible BMW and so on, all pretty dysfunctional, except for the Audi guy. It's a fun and interesting concept, recognised by Youtube that featured the first episode on it's comedy channel worldwide. The Beckers mini serie now continues with the just released second episode.

GM to nearly double Russian capacity on high expectations

General Motors believes Russia will become its biggest market in Europe next year.
GM will almost double its car producing capacity in the Russian market when it opens its new $300 million factory in St. Petersburg on Friday.
The plant will add 70,000 units of capacity to the 100,000 already available to GM at joint venture and partner facilities in the country.
It will initially build the Opel Antara and Chevrolet Captiva SUVs. The Chevrolet Cruze lower-medium car will follow at the end of 2009. It will also build the next generation Astra lower-medium car.
"We are fully committed to our Russia growth strategy," said Carl-Peter Forster, president of General Motors Europe, in a statement.
"Russia is poised to become Europe's No. 1 car market for GM as early as 2009. We are the leading non-Russian manufacturer. That's a position we aim to keep."
GM said its sales in Russia increased by 44 percent in the first nine months of 2008, outpacing industry growth of 23 percent and reaching a record total of 256,765 units.
GM's market share has reached a new high of 10.9 percent in Russia, the company said.
In the first nine months of the year, Chevrolet maintained its position as Russia's biggest selling non-domestic brand with sales up 33.5 percent to a total of 175,800 units.
In the same period, Opel was the fastest growing brand in the country with sales up 73 percent to more than 78,000 units.
The new plant, located in Shushary on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, will employ 1700 people.

What Do Moms Want in a Vehicle?

WSJ - David Patton and Mathew Passy talk with MotherProof.com's Senior Editor and Chief Mom Kristin Varela about her site and a discussion of why it's so hard to find consumer friendly auto reviews.

Podcast Link Here

German car sales sink in October

The number of newly registered cars hitting German roads sank 8 percent in October as the financial crisis prompted customers to hold off major purchases, the country's main auto industry group said Tuesday.
The VDA group said new car registrations last month declined to 258,800 from an "already weak" result in the same month last year. The group said it was cutting an "already cautious" full-year forecast from 3.2 million to 3.1 million at most.
It said consumers' increasing uncertainty in the face of the global financial crisis, high fuel prices and a lack of clarity over future car taxes and emissions regulations all contributed to holding back sales.
VDA said in a statement that orders for new cars in Germany — Europe's biggest economy — dropped 12 percent in October. It did not give an exact figure for orders.
German producers' exports declined 10 percent last month to 336,600, with U.S. and western European markets in particular suffering from the crisis. Orders from foreign customers sank 24 percent.
VDA chairman Matthias Wissmann said the industry is unlikely to reach last year's total of 4.3 million cars exported — with the German auto industry instead facing the prospect of its first decline in exports since 2003.
Germany is home to car makers such as Daimler AG, Porsche SE, Volkswagen AG and BMW AG.

Toyota slashes annual profit forecast

Toyota Motor slashed its annual profit forecast by more than half on Thursday, in a sign of how the global economic slowdown has slowed the Japanese auto juggernaut.
Japan's largest automaker also reported net profit in the three months ended Sept. 30 dropped by more than two-thirds, hurt by slowing demand, a tightening of car loans amid the global credit crunch and a stronger Japanese currency.
The steep declines, larger than those forecast by most analysts, threaten eight straight years of annual profit growth at Toyota, once the envy of the world car industry. It also cast into stark relief how America's economic contagion has infected automakers around the globe, hurting sales even in once fast-growing markets like India and China.
Toyota said it now expects net profits of ¥550 billion, or $5.5 billion, for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009, down 56 percent from its earlier forecast of ¥1.25 trillion. It also cut its annual sales forecast by ¥2 trillion to ¥23 trillion.
Toyota said net profit in the July- September quarter fell 69 percent to ¥139.8 billion.
"Frankly, it's very difficult to judge when the environment will stabilize," a Toyota executive vice president, Mitsu Kinoshita, told reporters.
The grim earnings report came just days after Toyota announced that October sales in the critical United States market had fallen 23 percent from last year. The slowdown has hit American rivals even harder, with General Motors reporting a 45 percent decline in the same month.
The global slowdown has struck Toyota just as it finishes rolling out a full lineup of vehicles, including larger eight-cylinder models like its Tundra pickup truck, in a bid to overtake GM as the world's largest automaker.
Thursday's results suggested the slowdown was hurting sales of Toyota's entire lineup, including popular, fuel-efficient models like its hybrid Prius and Camry sedan.
Analysts expect Toyota to react to the slowdown by relentlessly cutting costs and shifting more production and parts sourcing to local markets. The global slowdown has already forced the carmaker to put new factories on hold, layoff workers and offer ever sweeter incentives to entice buyers back into showrooms.

Citroën gets into leather

Over the weekend, the brand unveiled a new collaboration with Hermès (which must have been pleased with its Bugatti Veyron). The four-door Citroën 2CV par Hermès might lack the Bugatti's raw sex appeal, but it's pretty impressive in its own right: Think leather everything (steering wheel, dashboard, the gear knob) complemented by gray-beige cotton canvas (used to upholster the seats). And sure, now might not seem like the best time to introduce a car collaboration with Hermès, but it's not like you could've afforded this thing when times were good anyway. (Or so we think: Price is TBA.)

Streetside Beautification

We like this work from Joshua Callaghan that plays with public space and how we perceive it. Using breaker boxes and other utility units as his canvas, Callaghan creates visual illusions that make sidewalk obstructions disappear. Check out more of his work here.

Sixt "Wi-Fi Guerilla Idea"

Great work done by Jung von Matt for their client Sixt on Hamburg Airport. Check the video here: Wi-Fi Guerilla Idea

Agency: Jung von Matt Hamburg, Germany.

The TownCar - Eco-Friendly Car For Cleaner Cities

After years of unsuccessful attempts of making the supreme eco-car to fit in the crowded cities it seems that Serge Totsky is close enough to fulfill this bold project. His latest design was called The TownCar and it is a urban hybrid engine system vehicle.

The TownCar is a 5-door vehicle and it is powered by two clean energy sources: a solar panel on the roof, while the hood is hiding a fuel cell system. For better cornering, the vehicle is able to steer with all its four wheels, so the driver will be able to turn this car even in the most crowded places. You will be able to choose between the power sources, so if you will deal with the urban traffic it will be wise to use the solar panels. If you want to choose for speed, you will have to enable both power sources and go up to 110mph, which is pretty impressive for a car like this.

Though the TownCar looks more promising than the other concepts it will face the same problem like the hydrogen-powered vehicles: the hydrogen filling station are almost nowhere to find. So if you have a filling station in your back-yard, keep hoping that the TownCar concept will see the sun light as soon as possible.

U.S. vehicle sales tumble

Vehicle sales in the United States tumbled to multi-decade lows in October as tightened credit markets and an economic slowdown kept consumers away from dealerships.

The General Motors Corporation reported a 45 percent decline in sales on Monday, and the Ford Motor Company said it sold 30.2 percent fewer cars and trucks.

Toyota Motor said its sales were 25.9 percent lower, despite offering no-interest financing and large discounts on many models. Light truck sales fell 34 percent and autos fell 15 percent.

"If you adjust for population growth, this is probably the worst industry sales month in the post-World War II era," Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president for sales in North America, said in a statement. "We believe there is considerable pent-up demand from the last three years, but until the credit markets open up and consumer confidence improves, the entire U.S. economy, and any industry like autos that relies on financing, will suffer."

GM said it would begin its year-end "red tag" sale on Tuesday, a month sooner than usual, while Ford indicated that it planned to cut production of cars and crossover vehicles after its sales in those segments fell 27.1 percent and 37.1 percent.

Ford and other manufacturers rushed to increase car and crossover production earlier this year as truck sales plummeted but now find inventories of those vehicles growing as the entire market declines.

Sales were down 31 percent at Hyundai and 25 percent at Mercedes. Volkswagen, which introduced several new models in October, reported a 7.9 percent decline.

Other automakers are scheduled to release sales results later Monday. Analysts estimated that total industry sales fell more than 30 percent compared with October a year ago, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 11 million vehicles.

"The all-time low level of consumer confidence in October was reflected in particularly poor showroom traffic," Brian Johnson, an analyst with Barclays Capital, wrote in a report to clients.

GM and Chrysler, which are involved in merger discussions as they rapidly deplete their cash reserves, were expected to fare the worst in October. New restrictions by the two company's respective lending arms, the General Motors Acceptance Corporation and Chrysler Financial, have significantly hindered sales. GMAC now offers financing only to consumers with credit scores of at least 700, which excludes 42 percent of Americans, and Chrysler Financial no longer offers leases.

Automakers have had difficulty attracting customers for much of the year, but September and October were particularly challenging given the chaos in the financial markets. Fewer than one million vehicles were sold in September, the first time that happened since February 1993.

Sales have continued to fall even as gasoline prices fall sharply, to less than $2 a gallon in some states. Sales of profitable trucks and SUV's have rebounded to become about 14 percent of the market in October, up from 8.6 percent in May when gasoline was selling for about $4 a gallon.

But small cars remain popular, as consumers look for vehicles that not only are more efficient but cost less up front.

"'Gas prices is not the be-all, end-all explanation that predicts what people are going to buy," Ford's chief sales analyst, George Pipas, said. "Some people who really need or really want a truck are back into the market now because they were just sitting on the sidelines."

Over all, Pipas described October as "similar to what we've seen after a natural disaster," with consumers putting off major purchases until the economy settles down.

World premiere Nissan introduced the Nissan 370Z in a Video Game

Electronic Arts and Nissan move up a gear. A world first for the new Nissan 370Z. You can steer the car in the video game Need for Speed Undercover. This is the first time a car manufacturer uses a game before the official launch phase. Need for Speed Uncercover will be distributed on 20 November.

... "We are very proud of this partnership with Nissan and the world premiere of the new 370Z in our game ...," said Keith Munro, Vice President Marketing at EA.

... "Our partnership with EA is fundamental for lovers of Nissan" ..., said Christian Meunier, Vice President Marketing at Nissan.

The new Nissan 370Z with its taillights shaped boomerang is the evolution of the legendary Nissan 350Z. It will be presented for the first time live at the Los Angeles Auto Show, on November 19 for commercialization in spring 2009.

Need for Speed: Undercover will be marketed on November 20 for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, PC, Nintendo DS, PSP, PlayStation 2 and mobile phones.

Have a virtual baby with VW

Gulp. I would like to meet the crazy mind that came up with the RoutanBabymaker3000 idea, and the Volkswagen marketer who approved it (what a brave man!). Not sure whether I have positive or negative feelings about the idea that probably is weird and unexpected enough to have a good viral potential. To tell the truth, what surprises me is the complete lack of connection with the brand and the product. God save the brand! The agency is Crispin Porter + Bogusky.