KIA Sportage - mind numbing marketing

The goal of marketing is to generate consumer interest in a product. Really powerful marketing can drive sales even when the product is not that good. Poor marketing may allow a great product to languish on the shelf. Advertisements that are too clever for their own good (think Superbowl) may succeed in gaining consumer attention but fail to establish a remembered link to the producer or product that actually generates sales. What about advertisements that are too dumb for their own good? The worst marketing not only fails to get consumers excited about a product, but makes them detest it.

Hello KIA Sportage.

This rather unremarkable SUV was added to the overflowing SUV pool in 2005. What is remarkable is the same irritating TV commercial has been running right through to the present. The add shows someone driving the vehicle and they get out and throw the keys to someone else who drives and gets out and so on. The people are chosen to represent all walks of life. My problem is actually the soundtrack. Others are also annoyed and confused by the add- see a trail in the archives of blogger Samantha Burns . While there are some interesting jabs (including silliness of the name Sportage), no one seems to share my beef with the soundtrack.

“Start hav-ing a... great life
It’s about living with... in-spi-ration
Start hav-ing a... great life
I don’t take it for granted man”

The jangley thrumming song is by a real musician - "Goat". You can listen to a sample at Amazon - check it out
Or watch the whole sorry commercial if it doesn't drive you crazy - stupid ad

Now on this other blog site, I found some more material relevant to the soundtrack - a pointed critique of the song along with some mixed commentary/debate - Adjab

What I find insufferable is not really the car or the musician. Its the hubris of Kia telling me that my life is not great. No matter who you are and what you do, you're just sleep-walking through your existence, reminiscent of the illusionary lives depicted in The Matrix. But the equivalent of the red pill in that movie is apparently owning a Kia Sportage. Start having a great life. Its all been a sham until now. Fortunately Kia is here and if you simply acknowledging the importance of the Sportage you can really start living.

At the end of the commercial, the Kia voice comes on and tells you "the SUV with everything, is now for everyone." You have got to be F#$&@g kidding me! Did I mention hubris?

Even accepting that in America the foundation of modern life is, in fact, the power of personal independence and self-expression through automobile ownership (talk about taking it for granted man) somehow all other zillion SUVs out there since Willys circa WWII Jeep are missing something. Most car, and other product, ads tell you your life will be better if you have whatever it is. (Those stupid Enzyte commercials come to mind) But typically they stop short of implying that you've been duped and life only begins when you buy whatever it is.

What is it about cars in particular? Likely a bigger influence on your daily quality of life is breakfeast. As bombastic and zany as Cocoa Puffs cereal ad is, it doesn't tell you it is the key to a great life. It just says that it is really chocolately and really crunchy and whoa nelly if you don't get a sugar buzz better check your pulse. Cheerios makes the point that if you don't fuel up, you'll go kaput later on in the day, but it sells itself as a great way to start your day "part of a balanced breakfeast," not as some elusive secret to bliss on earth. What would the Dali Llahma have to say about the Sportage and greatness in life I wonder?

I'm convinced that however much my life is less than great, in large part it is because of pervasive societal marketing telling me so. My life would seem much more great if I wasn't bombarded with the idea that there is always something missing, something essential, something that could be captured via economics, either directly like buying the latest gia-normous sandwich at Burger King, gee-whiz cell phone that also does your laundry, or 18 foot flat screen high definition TV; or indirectly like achieving a certain social status thus opening the way for exclusive and/or premium activities/products/services - valued largely because not everyone can have them. In any event, I'm constantly presented with glossy images of the puzzle pieces necessary for a better life, with no thought to impacts to the rest of the world that might be related to my acquisition of such pieces.

What is depressing in the large scheme of things is how marketing helps drive what people take for granted. It erodes the idea that we all have to make tradeoffs everyday and there are not always easy solutions to problems and things aren't great all the time. It elevates the trivial to the forefront of consciousness. And it just makes my head hurt. My life would be just a tiny bit more great if the stupid Kia ad would go blow up in the faces of whoever wrote it. Ironically, the song by Goat is apparently about the non-trivial; its about people and family and life and death. Too bad it was sold into marketing slavery. I will plead temporary marketing induced insanity when I end up on trial for taking a baseball bat to the next Sportage I see.

Bush's Dr. Jekyl and the Prius' Mr. Hyde

For the love of turning things on their head, lets explore a coupla alternative themes, starting with the president. He has come a long way since those heady days in 2005 when he was re-inaugurated, The Discovery Channel named him sixth greatest American of all time, and Time Magazine made him person of the year. Indeed, it would probably not be an exaggeration to claim that he is now the most uniformly reviled human living because he took a country with vast power on a reckless course. Americans themselves are beginning to agree with this judgement as his approval ratings are tempting to dip into the 20s and serious Republicans like Chuck Hagel mentioning the words "Bush" and "impeach" in the same breath. Could there possibly be silver lining? Perhaps not, but lets give it a whirl.

Recently the venerable Foreign Affairs published an essay called The New New World Order which provides some food for thought. Daniel Drezner argues that the Bush Administration has waged a smart policy of integrating rising powers (China, India et al.) into those international institutions like the IMF which function effectively. "This unheralded effort is well intentioned and well advised." For the sake of argument, lets concede that Bush has blundered badly in his Middle East and security policies. But perhaps this will merit little more than a footnote when the history of the 21st century is written, since the far larger trend is that of China and India who are fundamentally changing the way the world operates. If they are not included in the international system then "they might go it alone and create international organizations that fundamentally clash with U.S. interests." As one state department official has put it, "we need to urge China to become a stakeholder in that system so that it will work with us to sustain...its success." Of course, you might say that the other big trend has more to do with the Toyota Prius, that is to say: global warming.

Yes well the Prius may not be the angel you think it is. At least such has been the talk around conservative watercoolers (do conservatives run on water? - that will have to wait for another column). But the real question (to which the al-Gore critique is a apparently a sequel) is whether Priuses run on green energy. The source of such wisdom seems to be a report issued by a marketing research firm called CNW which was described in this article in The Recorder (okay okay, I'll admit that the school paper at Central Connectecticut State is not quite the heavyweight that Foreign Affairs is). Herein two claims are made:

• The lifetime energy usage of a Prius is 50% more than a Hummer, if you consider the manufacturing process.
  
• The mining of nickel for the batteries does massive environmental damage.
  

Say it ain't so!?