Category: Media Mastery Tips

by George Merlis

“This is a win for the economy, a win for the environment, and a win for American consumers -- Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, speaking of the government’s $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program which ended with near fever pitch wheeling and dealing at car dealerships across the country.



I’m a media trainer, not an economist, so I’m not qualified to address Secretary LaHood’s assertion, but I am confident enough to make one of my own: “Cash for Clunkers was a win for media soundbites.” This program stimulated (sorry ‘bout that) a vast array of great quotes.

I’m not talking about the media scribes; after all, they’re paid to come up with lines like, “Accelerating the pace of auto sales,” and “jump-starting the stalled car business” and “driving customers to showrooms.” I’m talking about auto executives, dealers and customers who, in story after story, were inspired to give broadcasters and newspapers good quotes.

Here are a few: “It’s almost like people were coming out of their caves, and seeing that it was safe to go back into the showrooms.” -- George Pipas, chief market analyst for Ford. A nice, amusing word picture, although one wonders how many Ford customers are going to take offense that their car company of choice thinks they are, howsoever obliquely, cro-magnons.

While the customers received few sharp sticks in the eye, lots of ridicule was heaped on their rolling heaps: “I’m like, people own this? There are cars you would have to get a tetanus shot first before you’d drive it.” -- Ricky Spencer, manager of new car sales at Friendly Chevrolet in Dallas. A good, strong and witty word picture.

The customers, themselves, weren’t so quick to put down their old cars: “It’s an endearing word now, ‘clunker’ — this is my little clunker, my old clunker. Especially now that it’s going to die. It’s going to be lethally injected.” -- Chris Bonk, a talent agent, coming up with another witty word picture as he spoke about the 2000 Ford Bronco he was trading in for a fuel-sipping Focus at Star Ford in Glendale, CA

As the Bonk quote illustrates, we Americans love to anthropomorphize our cars, giving them names, gender attributes and even creating personalities for them. So it’s no surprise read a quote like this one from another Star Ford customer talking about being on hand when the engine-destroying compound was poured into her 21-year-old clunker of a truck: “We wanted to be near it and look at it. My eyes are getting watery right now just thinking about it.” -- Ileana Perez.

Taking a less sentimental approach was a customer of Jim Ellis Chevrolet in Chamblee, GA, who spoke of how the incentive program got him to turn in his 20-year-old Plymouth van: “We’d be riding that until it just completely died, until the wheels fall off.” -- Carlos King.

Mr. King is only three years older than the van, so he doubtless bought it used which may account for his lack of the puppy-type bonding that owners develop toward new cars they’ve purchased. And that illustrates one point seldom made in news stories: many Cash for Clunker customers were buying their very first new car (the program did not offer payments for the purchase of used -- sorry, I meant pre-owned -- vehicles). One dealer quoted in the New York Times made the case very colorfully: “Clunker people have a tendency to buy clunkers. They just upgrade their clunkers. This is like Christmastime for most of these people. Most of them would never have bought a new car.” -- John Rogin, owner Rogin Buick, Livona, MI



A cautionary note came from Jeremy Anwyl, chief executive of auto research firm Edmunds.com: “Cash for clunkers distorted the market in a way that benefited the industry for four weeks. Now the payback begins.”

But Representative John Dingell, (D, MI), refuted that: “The program did exactly what it was designed to do — stimulate our economy.”
It certainly stimulated a lot of people to deliver a lot of really good, juicy, enjoyable soundbites and pull-quotes.

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