2 reasons:

1. advertising is expensive. the car is cheap
2. why advertise when they have already sold everything they can produce this year. advertising would only bring more people to the list and once they see that their wait could be a long one, it would surley cause someone to sue! i would guess that once demand is caught up, you might see something advertising wise. in reality, with the cult following that exists up to now, they don't even need it.

 

and a third reason....



3. no dealerships had been in place. Traditional tv and newpaper ads are meant to get the customers to the showrooms.

 

When our Smarties are seen in public, word will spread like wildfire. People will come up to you in parking lots, wave on the highway...etc. I expect the local media will be all over it. I imagine, if necessary, local dealers may advertise....but as BMX said...why spend the $$$. I think one dealer in Wisc. used Bret Favre for an ad stating that their dealership will have the Smarts soon. It was posted here a while back. That had to be expensive. LOL

 

Well I own my business and I thought that when you advertize and people respond, its a great way to 'grow' and get bigger - increased revenues. Perhaps they are missing the point that in the USA, we want a car like that ( i would think we do since gas is constantly creeping upward ). And with my sad 1448 reservation number, I dont think I'll be attracting too much attention for a while.

 

The problem is that, at least at the moment, smart can't grow in the US - if we're lucky MB will increase the allotment to the US, but until then the wait will be 6-months to a year.

Myself, I'd prefer they don't advertise, and keep the price down. I hate spending a lot of money on car.

 

exactly. you can't advertise something you can't deliver. they only sell one product and it's not available for probably a year.

 

One thing you might see is local dealer advertisement, not really to take orders on smarts but to get you into the dealer's realm to sell you something else in the meantime.

 

yeah that is all I've seen so far - local dealership.

 

In the car business there are two kinds of advertising. Brand/awareness and call to action.

Brand stuff is usually done by the manufactures (Built Ford Tough, See the USA in you Chevrolet) .

Call to action is done by dealers (or in the case of big cities) dealer groups. Come on down, low down, low prices, great sales.

All of smarts branding is done through the net smartusa.com and public relations. Both pretty cheap and very effective. The dealers get web sites, built by smart in most cases. smart has told the dealers "No Advertising" for now to keep the branding message on point. A few have gone ahead anyway like the Bret Favre commercial in Wisconsin for example. And some dealer self made web sites.

You also don't see auto ads for some highly demanded cars as well. Like when Prius first came out. Now that Toyota has a whole bunch to sell, you see the Toyota ads.

Glad i'm not paying for the marketing costs for my smart.

 

Amethyste

Sorry to restate what they said above but I hope I can spin it a bit differently...

Many people are fickle consumers and many hold grudges a long time.. I personally will never ever be a Montgomery Wards customer again nor will I ever use Allstate or buy Mazda. I understand that my angst at these particular companies was caused by a action or attitude by an employee but in each case I complained to management and was given the bums rush or blown off...

What has this to do with Smart Car advertising?

As stated above... Roger Pensky initially contracted with MB to be sole importer in USA. His contract was for 16,000 units first year (2008) demand was so high the first 30 days of pre orders, that he and MB have been scrambling hard to increase the allocation...

Last we heard was 22~24 thousand 2008 units and this is still shy of the demand. As of Nov 07 they were reporting 45,000+ reservations and only 8~9% drop out on invite to configure

My uneducated guess is right now they have over 50,000 reservations for probably a max of 30,000 2008s...20,000 minus natural drop outs still leaves a LOT of angry people to deal with

So now they have a significant problem... how to meet demand and not loose folks like me who hold a grudge.... so the last thing they need to do is spend any capitol on local or national ad campaigns

In another thread some months ago a member posted a link to a Wisconsin Smart car dealership featuring Bret Favre.. a lot of us questioned the wisdom of that advertising with this logic:

How would you feel driving a few hours or across the state to a dealer to test drive a Smart Car only to find out the don't actually have any and when they do arrive ALL of them are sold out for first two years....

Then we thought: OK that will suck and tick off the long distance traveler but a local "walk in" won't be as ticked off, and the sales staff will work hard to sell them something they actually have on the lot... They are gambling that the Bret Favre ad will generate Dealership business even if not for the Smart Brand

Another reason PAG need not spend any advertising dollars...once these cars are delivered next week there will be hundreds of local news items of the debut! Free advertising brought to you courtesy of some 1173s! I can't wait to see Spdickey's infomertial...grin

 

Many people are fickle consumers and many hold grudges a long time.. I personally will never ever be a Montgomery Wards customer again nor will I ever use Allstate or buy Mazda.

I don't think you have to worry about Wards.

(For clarification: Montgomery Wards is long out-of-business - some group bought the name for online sales only, but there is no connection between them and the defunct mall anchors)

 

THanks for your opinion. It was nice to read something well put - what I am saying is that your answer was not there to make me feel like I am stupid. While others, kinda left me with a testosterone taste in my mouth. ( no pun intended here... )

 

Well they advertised for over half a year last year when they did their road show. Besides a car like this doensn't really need advertising just like the MINI when it first came out. Moreover, if they do advertise people seeing the ads now won't be able to get a car until 2009 so what's the point to advertise when your consumer can't get the car this year. Lastly, they've been getting their car in Nintendo's Wii commercials so indirectly, they are showing their products on TV ads.

 

Lastly, they've been getting their car in Nintendo's Wii commercials so indirectly, they are showing their products on TV ads.

There's another good example of someone advertising who doesn't need to. Anybody seen a Wii for sale lately? Talk about a backlog!

 

SpDickey...touchet! excellent point

 

They don't need to advertise..

The facility can barely produce enough Smart to answer the demand.

I have ordered mine and expect to receive it in few months.



They will probably advertise just a little so that the release date doesn't go unoticed. But they don't need huge campaign for the Smart.

Beside, if the demand jump too high, (if they can not produce enough units) what do you think will happen ?

The price will jump and thats the last thing people want.

 

a little more insight from a USA today article a few months back:

"Who needs advertising?

If the car seems unconventional, so is the way it's being sold. Schembri says he isn't advertising it. No need. Not with 30,000 online reservations in the bank. Instead, he says, he came up with the road show because the car has to be experienced from the driver's seat.

Smart car officials won't say how many cars they expect to deliver in the first six months, only that they'll meet demand, which so far has amounted to eight out of every 10 reservation holders saying they still want to buy one."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2007-11-11-smartcar_N.htm

 

see a smart on the street i want to see my smart in the driveway!!!!!!!!!!!#1236 and holding!

 

I got my first smart junk email today.

Subject line: My name, test drive a smart and receive a gift.

The email, from crownautomobile.com/smart center Birmingham includes embedded photos. To the best of my recollection, this is the first advertising of this nature I've received. Still haven't seen/heard anything in broadcast or print media.

I guess smart figures it's time to trade in my 2008.