Autoextremist offers up unvarnished Brand Image Meter

Jeff Sabatini — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 10:01:00 EST

Filed under: Marketing/Advertising, Humor

"Hot. Cold. Neutral. Pathetic." Those are the four brand descriptors professional Detroit auto industry provocateur Peter De Lorenzo applies to 40 major automotive brands in his latest Autoextremist rant.

If you've been reading De Lorenzo's stuff for any length of time, you've probably heard all this before, many, many times. But the column still has its share of nuggets, like, "Alfa Romeo: The brand that for the most part exists as a figment of Sergio Marchionne's considerable imagination," and "There's absolutely no reason in the world for this vehicle to exist other than to assuage Henrik Fisker's considerable ego."

De Lorenzo's ire isn't reserved just for executives, as he ridicules Ferrari for being "frickin' greedy," calls Lexus the "Eddie Haskell of the luxury auto space" for its vanilla approach, ridicules Mazda for its "nonsensical and flat-out dumb" Skyactiv branding campaign, and tags Volvo as "the brand for people who question why the even bother to own a car anymore."

While the column doesn't actually rank all the brands, it does quite predictably say that Porsche and BMW sit at the top of the heap, with Jeep and every other successful luxury marque making up the second tier. At the bottom of the pile? Well, that's a crowded place in the mind of the Autoextremist, but that crowning achievement of failure can only be awarded to Smart. Indeed, De Lorenzo forgot to even include that brand on his list.

Autoextremist offers up unvarnished Brand Image Meter originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 09 Jun 2012 10:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Peter De Lorenzo takes on auto industry in 140 characters or less

Jonathon Ramsey — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 17:03:00 EST

Filed under: Etc., Humor

The Autoextremist, Peter De Lorenzo, has done his best for "the minions, the gamers, the coddled and the entitled" who want an update on the auto industry but don't want to bother actually reading about it. You know the folks - the ones who write "summarize plz" or "Cliffs Notes?" in a comment thread because they can't be bothered taking the time to figure out what happened.

Done something like Abrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary but in the space of a tweet - that being no more than 140 characters, and 32 tweets in total - De Lorenzo covers just about every major carmaker and a few other subjects to boot. General Motors' marketing, but not the company itself, gets two tweets, and electric cars also get a double-dip. Not one for restraint, tweets include "Electric Cars: A niche wrapped in an enigma in search of decent batteries and a sustainable infrastructure. Other than that, it's all good." Click the link for more... Hat tip to Chris

[Source: Autoextremist]

Peter De Lorenzo takes on auto industry in 140 characters or less originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 23 Oct 2010 17:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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