Bad cars, even worse reporting

A few weeks ago Forbes ran the article, "The Worst Cars On The Road." In it nine of the eleven vehicles are from either GM or Chrysler. Not good PR for the Government Two car companies.

Looking at the cars listed, however, the news is not as bad as it seems.

The "Worst Cars" from GM are the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Tahoe Hybrid, Chevy Colorado and Chevy Aveo. The Chrysler vehicles to make this list are the Dodge Nitro, Dodge Dakota, Jeep Liberty, Wrangler Unlimited and Chrysler Town & Country.

Basically all the nameplates on this list are pre-bankruptcy vehicles, and given that some of the criteria for this list are value, cost of ownership and fuel economy it's not surprising that the list is dominated by big, heavy, expensive SUVs and trucks. They're old Detroit. Even the Chevy Aveo comes from that model where GM gave up building small cars and sourced cheap, crappy little boxes from partners like Daewoo.

I'm not going to defend the cars on the list. None are great in my estimation and some, like the Dodge Nitro, answer an automotive question that nobody asked. But labeling them as the "worst" is a little over the top.

And that's my other problem with this list, the source of its information: Consumer Reports. Forbes did no original testing for this evaluation and ignored other reliable sources of information like J.D. Power & Associates. They just compiled data from Consumer Reports. Lazy reporting at best.

I know I've been critical of GM and Chrysler in the past and will continue to call 'em like I see 'em, but this list is a hack job that just piles on based on old, biased and specious information.

I don't know why I expected more from Forbes.

This was easy

A few months ago, I posted about Delta's new ad campaign from Wieden+Kennedy concluding with this:

"...But when you walk up to a Delta counter to find that you've been bumped from your flight and the agent says, "Sorry, there's nothing I can do but put you on the first flight out tomorrow." the promise is broken. The passenger says, I guess you're really not any different. And the millions of dollars spent to communicate the brand promise has been wasted."

This happened to a friend of mine on Friday as he and his family were to travel home from Michigan to Connecticut. They showed up at the airport with their infant child with plenty of time to board their flight. They checked their bags, checked in, and found their way to the gate. After a short wait came the announcement. Their flight had been cancelled and passengers would be rebooked.

After waiting in line they got to the counter and were offered a $50 voucher and a flight out the next day. No overnight accommodations. Oh, and their luggage was already on another plane and couldn't be retrieved. Worst of all, they had timed there trip so they could be home to attend a friend's wedding which they would now miss.

Delta's explanation for this inconvenience? The crew didn't show up. Surprised my friend asked, you mean they got stuck in another city? And the gate agent said, "no, sometimes people don't show up for work, you know how that is."

That's when he got angry. This wasn't a mechanical problem. This wasn't an act of god. It was the representatives of a brand not doing their jobs and a brand not holding them accountable. A brand that had promised their passengers that they had their backs.

Delta failed on the most fundamental level. And if you've ever flown, you could see this coming from miles away.

Eating ourselves to death

Apparently we need to be saved from ourselves. At least that's what the Federal Trade Commission thinks.

Our children are fat and clearly advertising is the problem.

They've proposed "voluntary guidelines" to change how food products are marketed to children. Essentially the proposal is encouraging food companies to produce marketing campaigns that "encourage children to choose foods that make meaningful contributions to a healthful diet." Fair enough.

So if you're a food maker and you're going to advertise to children using "child- or teen-oriented animated or licensed characters; use of language to appeal particularly to children or teenagers; use of child or teen models; child- or teen-oriented themes, activities, or incentives," the FTC will be watching you. And if your food doesn't conform to very strict guidelines for added sugars, sodium, trans fat and saturated fat, there will be consequences. What those consequences will be as yet are unknown, but one can only imagine...

As someone who has created food advertising and new products for nearly 20 years for brands that include Kraft, Chiquita, General Mills and Pepsi, and knowing a lot of people who work in those companies, I fear that our government ascribes darker motives to their behavior than I have ever seen. These are good people with families of their own who are doing their best to produce the products that people are asking for and even lead the market in healthier directions. Ultimately their job is to produce products that sell and do it in a responsible way.

It's unfortunate that they are being punished because we have become so lax in our parenting and our food knowledge is so poor that the government feels the need to step in before our under-parented children eat themselves to death.