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Detroit Auto Show Brinksmanship
Detroit Auto Show Brinksmanship
By Matthew DeBord
Posted Friday, June 19, 2009 - 6:07pm
The North American International Auto Show, held every year during the frozen Detroit winter, is generally considered THE big car show. It’s where the Big Three (when they were still big, not bankrupt or deeply in hock) staged their major “reveals” of new models. The rest of the world pulled into town, too. All the other U.S. auto shows—Los Angeles, Chicago, New York—have been also-rans compared with Detroit.
However, like everything else in the auto business, that could change. As the Detroit Free Press reports, there’s a snit currently being played out between Detroit itself and the organizers of the car show. Basically, the organizers want to see the show’s traditional venue, the Cobo Center downtown, fixed up. There’s a political debate about whether Detroit really wants to do that right now.
Obviously, it would be a disaster for Detroit if the auto show leaves town. However, this does raise the question: Do car shows really matter anymore? They’ve become costly media hootenannies of questionable marketing value. Over the past decade, they got bigger and bigger, and more and more attention was focused on them. But at the same time they functioned as a glitzy distraction from the true ills of the industry.
Maybe the threat to take the Detroit show elsewhere is in the end pretty hollow. Who, one wonders, would want it?
Comments
Detroit Auto Show
Car shows remain a key marketing information channel to reach those middle class consumers who regard cars as exciting. The de-rigeur stance of the Washington/NYC punditocracy in favor of excitement-free transportation appliances, with scorn heaped on SUVs, pickups, "sporty" cars and other traditional vehicle types, unfortunately ignores everything the auto industry knows about a sizeable percentage of its actual customers' buying preferences. This is yet another demonstration of why Washington should butt out, and the industry should ignore the pundits, when it comes to marketing.
We've known for the past hundred years that the auto industry is highly susceptible to dips in the general economy, but pent-up demand causes it to roar back when the economy recovers. Washington would be much more helpful if they would concentrate on fixing the recession, properly regulating the financial and real estate markets in the future, and nationalizing health care so that all US manufacturers would have the same costs. The auto industry's "true ill" will be UNDER-capacity when the recession ends and 16 million buyers want new wheels.
The Detroit show in particular is local to the industry nexus of styling and engineering resources, and the HQs of three car companies and many suppliers. It's trivially obvious that the industry wants it to continue. It's part of the marketing foundation; LA, New York, Chicago, Paris, etc. are supplements, not substitutes. As to where it might move to, if Detroit politics causes such a move...I apologize for undercutting the unremittingly negative theme of the published piece, but the discussion is about moving the show 20 miles to another exhibition center. Not exactly a big deal.