#OrchidsandOnions: GWM appeals to hardcore 4x4 consumers with Chuck Norris-inspired ad
My favourite story about odd product names – or ones which wouldn’t work in a specific context – is one which is close to home, because I have one myself.
Back in 1959, as the Nissan Motor Company of Japan was planning to launch an invasion of the American market, it did some things right and others wrong.
Its first misstep was in the naming of its small sports car under its Datsun brand.
The company boss man had spent some time in the States, checking out the market and, one evening, took in a Broadway play – My Fair Lady, starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews.
“Hah so!” He thought. “What a great name for a car.”
Well, maybe in Japan – where it still shines on Nissan’s sports models – but not in the rootin’, tootin’ man’s man place that was America in those years.
They soon changed the name to Roadster for the American market and to Sports for the cars it sold in Australia.
My car (a 1964 model) is known as a Fairlady and, since I am long past the road-burning years, it doesn’t worry me.
Plus, it is a Japanese spec car, which is rare.
After all these years, the name suits it, because it’s cute – according to my wife.
GWM appeals to the rough, tough and hard-to-bluff 4x4 crowd
I was reminded of the Fairlady tale recently when I looked at the latest ad for GWM’s Tank 300 four-wheel-drive.
The Chinese (and GWM is a major Chinese brand) have, like the Japanese before them, put some strange names on cars.
At least those which sound strange to our Western ears.
Yet, the Tank is the exact opposite.
If you want to attract the rough, tough and hard-to-bluff crowd in the hugely competitive SA 4x4 market, you have to make a statement.
And Tank’s statement is: “I am the meanest 4x4 in the valley and I don’t just drive over things, I drive through them. I am built like a tank.”
Even before a potential buyer sets foot in the vehicle, he (they’re almost always men) will be snared by the name.
“No sissy-boy Hilux for me – I can’t drive a car that has a name that sounds like a fridge or a toaster!”
But, to capitalise on that already muscular start, agency Admakers put a uniquely South African twist on the ad, not only tailoring the copy to fit the macho image of Tank but doing it in a way that can’t help but smile at.
When you talk tough, you talk Chuck Norris tough – and his name has been linked to jokes and myriad memes.
Even he laughs at himself using that style occasionally.
So, Admakers tell the tale of the average (Chuck Norris-type) Tank driver. ‘
He basically bliksems everything that gets in his way.
I may be biased because I think that, at its best, our ad sector is one of the best in the world.
But I did go looking for Tank ads on YouTube.
Sorry to you Thailand and Australia, you can’t hold a candle to the Admaker's okes.
Orchids to GWM – for the whole concept – and to Admakers for bringing it to life.
Shotgun marketing fails to impress
I always wonder how marketers and PR people think a “shotgun” approach to marketing a product works – in other words, a huge clutch of email addresses garnered from who-knows-where and all peppered with the same message.
The clever mail chimps can insert a name into the text, giving it a personalised feel – but when this is just the first part of your email address, it is just plain annoying and a reminder that whoever sent you the message is trying to get the biggest bang for the least buck.
I reckon the positive response rate would be less than 1%.
The one I received last week addressed me, in a chummy fashion, by the first half of my email address, and saluted me as a “student housing and accommodation stakeholder.”
Clearly no idea of the person you’re speaking to, Steve Munyao of the Sixth Annual Affordable Student Housing Summit and Expo 2024.
Never mind the sundry grammatical errors in the mail, I had already decided this was an amateur half-hour.
I would have felt the same way even if I was involved in the sector because this way of whipping up interest is just lazy.
And it would worry me, then, about what other laziness would be served up during the conference itself.
An Onion for you, Steve Munyao of the Sixth Annual Affordable Student Housing Summit and Expo 2024.
