• Los Angeles Times, Friday, April 10, 2009 11:15 AM

Dan Neil reviews the looks and performance of the Infiniti G37 Convertible this morning, but of arguably more interest is what he says about the nameplate's positioning over the years -- and the state of our favorite business endeavor in general. To wit:

"Recently, I began writing a column about advertising and marketing for this paper, a process that has awakened my sense of the ludicrous, chicken-salad-flavored fertilizer that passes for brand marketing in this country. And no automotive company has agonized more over the meaning of its brand than Infiniti, Nissan's luxury division, whose image advertising has at various times invoked the serene austerity of a Japanese tea room and the tuck-and-roll dissipation of a Nevada cathouse."

There's a bit about a "Hebraic" quest in the desert, musings on the essence of the machine, a trope that compares the washi textures on the G37's interior panels to Ford using beef as upholstery, and a complaint about the trunk space that is captured by: "you can take the kids to school in alfresco glory, but there's no room in the trunk for their lunch boxes."

Read it for yourself and tell me that all the gustatory metaphors don't leave you hankering for hearty lunch on a picnic blanket in the sun-damasked cliffs above Malibu.

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