• by Karl Greenberg , Staff Writer, December 9, 2014

"It's simple. Whatever you do, don't blame the customer." Those were sage words of advice from Tom McDonald, Audi director of public affairs during the Audi 5000 unintended-acceleration PR maelstrom in the ‘90s, to PR legend/villain/crisis guy Jason Vines, who at the time was dealing with the same faux issue with Jeep. And it is a central central theme of Vine's autobiographical bumper-car ride through the auto industry, What Did Jesus Drive: Crisis PR in Cars, Computers and Christianity. 

When I say the book, whose ironic title is taken from a tagline by the Evangelical Environmental Network, is a great beach read, I mean it in the best possible way: a lot of industry-insider books are drier than a popcorn fart (one of Vines’ expressions) and unlikely to appeal to outsiders. "What Did Jesus Drive?" is an absolute romp. It's Hunter S. Thompson meets Robert Penn Warren. To call him politically incorrect is like saying Marlboros and deep-fried Oreos don't quite win the healthy-heart emblem. And he knows about the former. 

Vines has been hired, heralded, fired, and reviled at Chrysler, Nissan, Ford, the D.C. industry lobby The American Automobile Manufacturers Association, and other places, so his is an insider's look at an industry with more intrigue than “Game of Thrones.” The book has the 0-to-60 speed of a Bugatti, and accelerates from there. It is full to the gas cap with vim and vitriol about NHTSA (National Highway Safety Administration), Consumers Union, Public Citizen, PETA (pigs as crash test dummies?), idiot CEOs, brilliant leaders, bad advice, great advice, great advice swept under the rug, and how great cars and technology can get screwed by bad public relations and marketing. There are probably five screenplays waiting to be written between its covers. To anyone in the PR world it should probably be required reading; each chapter finishes with a lesson on how not to do what someone just did on the prior page. 

And adding to the fun, regardless of your point of view, is Vines' utter contempt for the "liberal" media and the litigation combine. Vines vents, and regardless of whether you agree or not, it is a perspective you rarely encounter because PR people don't tell tales out of school, even after they've left school. And you certainly won't hear it quite this way from anyone but Vines, who has never been chary about sharing his opinions. Former NHTSA administrator and head of Public Citizen Joan Claybrook has most certainly been feeling an odd stabbing pain in her back since the book came out. 

And even if you don't care for the PR advice, you'll love the PR stunts, and there are no PR stunts more entertaining than the ones Vines pulled off, even when they failed spectacularly. Especially at Chrysler, which was famous for doing absolutely wacky shit like like introducing the mild-hybrid Dodge Intrepid with a whimsical bit of fun involving an 8-year-old actress "driving" onstage in a toy car. 

"As [designer] Tom Gale spoke to the virtues of the Intrepid concept, the little shit — ahem, the little sweetheart — decided it was below her to be merely a stage prop." She hopped out of the car and started to do improvisational ballet. This was not in the official script. And there was his brilliant reveal for Nissan Z that extended a reviewer’s last line in a buff book, “Build it and they will come” complete with a field of dreams and Nakamura onstage reading a blown-up version of the article.

There's his famous effort to get Lee Iacocca to be a spokesperson for his former nemesis Nissan, which came close to happening. A marketer I know was at Nissan's agency at the time. He recalled to me how Iacocca did, indeed, show up at an agency meeting to talk about the idea. In exchange, Iacocca would get Nissan backing for his latest venture: electric bikes. Iacocca backed out at the last minute, though it would have been a hugely entertaining blow-up if he’d done it, even in pre-Internet days. And Vines could have handled that crisis, too.