View Tim Porter's profile
Thursday, April 9, 2009
British Motor Show Cancelled
The only surprise about this seems to be that its still deemed worthy of front page news in this months Exhibition News.
The state of the car industry is a well known story at the moment, and with new car sales having ground to a halt and the industry queuing up for handouts from the government there is no real prospect of the manufacturers stumping up vast fortunes (of what in effect may well be taxpayers money) to exhibit products they can't shift anyway.
The only real question is whether it will ever come back - and personally I'll be surprised if it does.
The motor industry is comprised of a handful of global maufacturers, and they only need 1-2 shows each year (in Europe, the US and Asia) to gather the world press and launch new products to them. Set against these criteria, the UK simply doesn't make the cut as the European leg next to a French/German/Italian-market friendly Geneva.
And as a domestic UK marketing initiative in an age of back-to-back car programmes on digital TV, shelves-full of magazines in every newsagent, more comparison websites than even Google can index and every remaining newspaper reviewing cares every week a motor show full of parked new cars you usually can't get into has looked a bit of a dinosaur for quite some time now. Maybe the credit crunch has finished it off, however I suspect the writing has been on the wall ever since Top Gear Live hit upon the astounding innovation of actually having some of the cars driving around at the show!
So, no budgets, no sales generates as a result, no need on the part of the exhibitor community and a host of better information - and entertainment - sources. Time to develop something more focused....
The state of the car industry is a well known story at the moment, and with new car sales having ground to a halt and the industry queuing up for handouts from the government there is no real prospect of the manufacturers stumping up vast fortunes (of what in effect may well be taxpayers money) to exhibit products they can't shift anyway.
The only real question is whether it will ever come back - and personally I'll be surprised if it does.
The motor industry is comprised of a handful of global maufacturers, and they only need 1-2 shows each year (in Europe, the US and Asia) to gather the world press and launch new products to them. Set against these criteria, the UK simply doesn't make the cut as the European leg next to a French/German/Italian-market friendly Geneva.
And as a domestic UK marketing initiative in an age of back-to-back car programmes on digital TV, shelves-full of magazines in every newsagent, more comparison websites than even Google can index and every remaining newspaper reviewing cares every week a motor show full of parked new cars you usually can't get into has looked a bit of a dinosaur for quite some time now. Maybe the credit crunch has finished it off, however I suspect the writing has been on the wall ever since Top Gear Live hit upon the astounding innovation of actually having some of the cars driving around at the show!
So, no budgets, no sales generates as a result, no need on the part of the exhibitor community and a host of better information - and entertainment - sources. Time to develop something more focused....
Labels: BIMS, british motor show, cancelled, motor show
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment