Even though it was a "stunt" , it was still pretty cool.
:wave:
GM, 'Oprah' team up to give away cars
September 14, 2004
The woman who made Dr. Phil a household name, launched her own magazine and drove countless books onto the best-seller list is lending her golden touch to a new Pontiac midsized sedan made in Michigan.
General Motors Corp. kicked off its new Pontiac G6 with a bang Monday, when megastar Oprah Winfrey surprised 276 audience members with a free vehicle during the 19th season premiere of her talk show.
An estimated 30 million viewers see the show each week. Audience members were chosen because friends or family wrote about their need for a new car.
The Pontiac G6, built in Orion Township, starts at $21,300, but audience members will be permitted to customize their cars with all the options, pushing the price of the car to an estimated $28,400 and the cost of the giveaway promotion to at least $7.8 million. GM's Pontiac division is covering all of the costs, including the tax and licensing fees.
Automakers have used celebrities to peddle their products before. Country music star Toby Keith promotes Fords; Grammy winner Celine Dion did ads for Chrysler, and golf legend Tiger Woods pitches for Buick. But Winfrey, who is revered by some, has a proven track record for pushing products among a wide demographic.
GM officials said they knew they needed to do something special to break through the advertising clutter and make potential customers aware of its new nameplate.
"We couldn't think of anybody bigger than Oprah," said Mary Kubitskey, advertising manager for Pontiac. "There's a lot of clutter out there right now. We had to find a way to break though."
The promotion -- which may make Pontiac dealers overnight fans of Winfrey -- highlights a marketing era that morphs advertising, public relations, event marketing and product placement into one confusing jumble of information for consumers. That is especially true as many consumers rely on digital recorders to avoid commercials. Winfrey and GM's public relations staff were ready on the phone Monday, doing interviews about the planned news event.
Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research Inc. in Bandon, Ore., said GM's move was so brilliant that he was struck that other automakers hadn't thought of it before.
"It's a marketing stunt, but it was a good one," he said. "It's something nobody has really done before."
Michael Bernacchi, professor of advertising and marketing at the University of Detroit Mercy, said GM's promotion on the female-leaning "Oprah Winfrey Show" should also offset Pontiac's sponsorship of NCAA basketball and football.
The "Oprah" promotion also seems to take the gimmicky car giveaway, born out of game shows and contests, to a new level.
GM had been refining the promotions, and earlier this year, hosted a Hot Button giveaway, in which it gave away 1,000 vehicles over 56 days to random consumers who pushed the OnStar button in certain vehicles at dealerships. About $25 million was spent on that effort.
But while winners of the Hot Button giveaway were dispersed around the country and winning one of 54 different products, this latest effort with Winfrey seems more focused. Scores of media outlets reported on a single product in connection with the "Oprah" show hours before the event even aired.
The effort, Bernacchi said, would likely eclipse the buzz that benefited the Auburn Hills-based Chrysler Group after it sponsored Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" show on NBC earlier this year. Trump gave the winner of the show a single free 2005 Chrysler Crossfire Roadster at the end of that contest.
On Monday's "Oprah," Winfrey was shown touring the Orion Assembly Center, where she worked on the line a week ago for about an hour, assembling bumpers, GM said.
During the surprise-giveaway portion of the show, Winfrey invited 11 unsuspecting audience members on stage, where they were presented with a box containing a key to a new car. She then said that a 12th key was located in another box somewhere in the audience, but audience members opening their individual boxes quickly learned there was a key for everyone.
"Everybody gets a car! Everybody gets a car!" Winfrey yelled as she jumped up and down on the stage.
Sharon Joyce of metro Detroit, who drove to the taping of the show on Sept. 9 in Chicago, said everyone in the audience was screaming, crying and hugging one another with excitement. The group then followed Winfrey outside to a parking lot of Pontiac G6s -- all decorated with giant red bows.
Joyce, a customer service agent for DTE, said she needed a new car to replace her 3-year-old Dodge Intrepid, and the gift gave her some needed financial breathing room.
"I was literally shocked," she said. "I have been blessed."
