DEAD GIVEAWAYS; Pontiac and Oprah's G6 handout generated big buzz, but not sales.(News)(General Motors Corp. Pontiac Div)(Oprah Winfrey)

Advertising Age, March, 2005 by Creamer, Matthew; Halliday, Jean

Byline: MATTHEW CREAMER AND JEAN HALLIDAY

Pontiac and Oprah's G6 handout generated big buzz, but not sales

pontiac pulled off a watershed media stunt when it launched its G6 model, giving away 276 cars to shocked audience members during Oprah Winfrey's season opener last September.

So why are the vehicles gathering dust on dealers' lots?

Just over 27,000 G6s were sold in its first five months, a sluggish performance that was part of an overall drop for the brand. Pontiac sales slid nearly 23% during the first two months of 2005, to 55,841 units.

BREAKDOWN

Weighing those figures against the initial buzz that surrounded a move hailed as an ingenious alternative to a traditional advertising campaign, there seems to...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.