Re: Alfa Romeo rumors?

["Paul Misencik" <paul@domain.elided>]

> So how is it in the car industry? I know that Ford came down hard on a
> guy running a rumor site about the big blue oval but are NDAs as
> strict? Do leaks occur? Pocket digital cameras smuggled out of the
> design studios?

As a partner in an ad agency, I might be able to shed a little light here.
It's a pretty involved question, but essentially, automakers carefully
engineer their "leaks" and carefully plan precisely how and when and to what
extent they occur.  Any NDAs are strict indeed, but unlike Apple, automakers
intentionally provide "spy" photos and various leaks before a new product
kits the market.  I once met an automotive "spy" photographer, and he said
he knew exactly where to go around virtually every automakers test track to
get "spy" photos.  The automakers knew he was there, and he knew they knew,
and they simply wouldn't send the car around that section until they were
ready for the "spy" photos to be released.  It's all part of the planned
marketing rollout of a new car.

This is primarily for two reasons:

1)  Typically, there is a well-documented process where the public has to
"get used to" a new auto design, especially if it is relatively
revolutionary or dramatic.  Form a marketing standpoint, it is very rare
that springing a totally new design on the public results in immediate
sales.  Rather, the automaker slowly sort of "teases" the marketplace,
getting them exposed to the car, little by little, over a period of time.
Often, when a dramatically different model or design comes out, people
initially shun it, and then only slowly start to accept the new design as
the norm.  This happened briefly when Ford sprung the overly-ovoid 1996 Ford
Taurus redesign on a public accustomed to a fairly bland, safe family sedan,
and Ford had to spend a fortune in advertising to make the new design look
like an "every family's Taurus" again.  The new 7-series BMW is ruffling a
lot of feathers right now, but fewer and fewer every day, and I guarantee
you that in two years you'll look at the old 7-series and think to yourself
how dated it appears...

2)  It is also much harder to protect and hide pre-production automobiles.
They must undergo cold weather road testing, hot weather road testing, they
have to be tested with all sorts of different types of fuels, and they have
to have a whole bunch of road miles on them.  In the early days of
pre-production, you can get a lot of this testing done as independant
systems (such as testing a new VW Golf engine in the chassis of the old
model) but as you get closer and closer to production, you have to start
driving the car.  No way around it.

Apple doesn't have either of these problems.  First, they don't have the
massive VARIETY of competition that automakers have to contend with.  People
(and companies) are pretty much going to buy either macs or PCs.  There
really isn't much alternative.  So Apple doesn't have to "tease" the
marketplace to make sure they will accept a new product.  With much less
risk, people are going to accept it.  In fact, Apple has created its own
kind of hype and frenzy surrounding a new release specifically because of
the secrecy, which has its own promotional value, at least with the Mac
faithful.  Second, they can keep the whole box inside their facility and
test it until they are blue in the face.  Any temperature testing, etc can
be accomplished in total secrecy.

There are exceptions to every rul, of course, but that's the basic
difference.

Paul Misencik
Creative Director
P. Roman Media
Huntersville, NC  28078
email: paul@domain.elided
www.paoloroman.com
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