Car reviews Vs carmaker advertising: How they really behave
Ever wondered what happens when the cosy friendship between the motoring media and car company public relations collapses? Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the bad incentives influencing the reviews you watch…
Polestar appears to have had a falling out with CarExpert concerning the details of the grossly overpriced Polestar 3, a fake Swedish SUV EV announced recently.
Honestly, I have seen two-year-old children running on red cordial and behaving in a more emotionally mature way. This is a pretty good example of how car makers actually comport themselves behind the scenes, when they think the public isn't looking.
According to a source at CarExpert.com, there has been a full-on tantrum from Polestar regarding the information that the motoring website published, having sourced that info from Polestar’s own website. But its the fact CarExpert published it before the embargo had lifted which has Polestar in a tiff; except that the information was already made public by Polestar’s own website.
In retaliation, Polestar (with no commercial success to boast of) has said it’s pulling its advertising revenue from CarExpert. My reason for bringing you this story is not to trash-talk Polestar, despite how much fun that would be, but mainly to show you the degree of leverage - of control - that car makers expect to foist over the press. That intention means to influence the reviews that you watch when you’re making the critical decision to dump a large sum of money on your next car.
At AutoExpert, advertising revenue from carmakers is irrelevant. So when you look from my world at ‘Car Review World’, you can see that advertising revenue is just the mother of all bad media incentives because it turns into a set of golden handcuffs for the publisher that stop journalists reporting what they actually think (and any facts that they might want to express in addition), under the threat of withdrawing the advertising.
It’s the same motive behind Jeep Gagging the Motoring Press >> in their vehicle loan agreements with journalists.
Polestar probably doesn’t want the motoring press scalding them for blatant EV greenwashing as their own B-roll highlights.
This is really serious for you as a consumer and for motoring journalists out there who are not scumbags, generally, but are trying to do the right thing but have their heads in a vise.
Every motoring journalist I know has a set of privately held opinions which are quietly, privately and occasionally discussed among friends. They might express those views about particular carmaker or their particular products in trust to some, but if they make public statements about those same car makers and products, those statements just don't gel for those companies.
If you're a journalist, typically you've got to feed your family and you've got to produce reviews. You're already working very hard to produce those things and if you get a carmaker offside, you end up stuck between the publisher and a senior executive at a carmaker threatening to turn off the tap. If this happens, the publisher might think it’s just easier to cut you loose because you’re a problem.
What the problem is here is that the journalist might have told you the truth about a vehicle or brand, but he didn't self-censor it enough to keep the carmaker happy - and I freaking hate that.
Check out the full Polestar tantrum by watching the full report above. You can also check out other miscreant behaviour from Polestar: bogus finance & depreciation offer >>, or their epic greenwashing EV publicity stunt >>.
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