• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, October 20, 2015

Warnings about cybernetic marketing insights were as ubiquitous at the Association of National Advertisers’ Masters of Marketing conference last week as badly designed swimming pools are in Orlando, a city that itself is a kind of hotel swimming pool, but shallower. It's Los Angeles with lakes and even less reality. If the center does not hold in L.A., the center is a black hole in Orlando, appearing around the time Disney World dropped its roots there and started sucking the entire city into its “World” view. Not the best place to talk about real people and what they really want, but there you have it.  

Still, reality versus fantasy was a big theme, with lots of people saying don't rely too much on data to define your customers. Harley-Davidson CMO Mark-Hans Richer was eloquent about the idiocy of subscribing to fantastical ideas about who your fans, customers and prospects are. He showed photo montages of the real people who ride Harley-Davidson. 

He actually played a kind of trick, where he described someone who was obviously cooler than you or I will ever be. A big hit at Sturgis, S.D., for his exploits present and past, which involved, I think, flying military planes, and then touring around the U.S. on his bike. Except he's my dad's age. Well, actually 82, so a bit younger. But his point, which Richer made in other ways, including as he explained the development of the brand's Dark Custom lineup, was clear: creating demographic templates and then making your customers, and therefore your marketing conform to those, is kind of insane. That's like inventing a disease just so you have someone to market some pill to. Oh. Wait, we do that already. I guess we are insane.    

I should mention, since this is supposed to be about cars today (more about Orlando another time), that I drove a Volkswagen Jetta from Jacksonville to the conference. I wanted to because, first of all its cheaper and easier to deal with Jax, but also because I wanted to actually get away from the idea about the brand and see what the product is like. I made the point of giving a ride to a friend, a gent who runs a Jacksonville area auto club. Both of us were shocked at the experience. Shocked. That's not hyperbole. I would buy that car tomorrow if my dad let me. 

My passenger, who is entirely skeptical of any car he doesn't own, kept vocally regretting he'd bought his daughter something from the competition. I could tell you the price of the Jetta, which was loaded, with a 1.8T motor, but then I'd have to kill you. Suffice to say that the experience left us both feeling bad for the people at VW who are now sucking humble pie through a straw and probably wanting to find and execute the person, people, cabal, at the company who signed off on you-know-what.   

Speaking of which, Loren Angelo, director of marketing at VW's sibling, Audi of America, spoke about that brand, about how the automaker has succeeded over the past few years by toppling the Rule of Three, meaning proving that the rule is wrong, that there can be room at the top for more than the Father, Son and Holy Ghost of luxury auto brands. “In 2006, we had been playing around with other niche luxury brands. But we realized we had to challenge the big ones, that's where we should be.” Audi, in other words, had to vie against BMW, Mercedes and Lexus, not niche brands like Land Rover and Jaguar. 

Audi, along with sibling Volkswagen, is one of the top three brands worldwide, but not here, thanks to Lexus. “Our position needed to be carved out. Mercedes is traditional luxury; BMW is conspicuous luxury; Lexus is practical luxury. We said we own progressive luxury,” he said. “It's challenging the rule of three with a more progressive choice. We had the support, opportunity and products to deliver on that." Audi probably doesn't want to be a perpetual challenger brand in the top tier, at least in terms of sales, but it's a valuable equity to own. It keeps you smart if you think that way. Angelo pointed out that Audi gets to do things differently, that not having a gigantic budget forces you to think. In so many words, he said the company has to find fantastic ways of conveying what the brand represents. “Sophistication is what a progressive brand portrays in the marketplace.”