No, Michigaman was not the target audience because he never had any intention on buying a Cadillac. Dealers are scumbags but so are people who ruin promotions by going in there and wasting everyone's time.
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The scenario MichiganMan described was not "bait & switch". The true definition of "bait & switch" goes something like "New 2014 Apple I-pads, $159.99!" When you get there, first thing in the a.m., the salesman says, "I'm sorry, we're out of I-Pads, but we have 2009, refurbished Acers, I can let you have for the same price, it's a MUCH better machine". Again, you have to prove they NEVER had the I-Pads, and no one bought one @ $159.99. GM knows all this, and despite people's feelings about them, they don't do business in that manner. I'm sure they thought this out, ran it by legal, and if someone does decide to contact the Attorney General, they can come up with verification that "X" amount of people received the $100 cards.
Wasting a merchant's time with no interest in his services is a sin.
Just because you obviously do not value your time doesn't mean you should go hassle people trying to make a living. Then you have the nerve to complain about this in a public forum. Very deluded and selfish mindset. A walk around DIA would have been a better use of your afternoon.
I read the fine print on this and the only reason why I didn't go and do a test drive is because I don't own a non GM Vehicle.
I saw nothing about the supplies being limited.
The sales person was probably tired of people coming in and wasting his time for the gift card, so they sized him up and lied. Probably would have been better to do the test drive first and then claim the gift card after.
I used to sell Dish network and every once and a while they would run the 30 day satisfaction guarantee. The ones that would specifically ask for the trial, and we felt or would flat out say they would have no intentions on keeping it, we would find an excuse not to sell to them. Why waste our time
What part of "while supplies last" is so hard to comprehend. I am all for calling out a company for lying but this just sounds like whining for the sake of whining.
BS. Any honest adult understands the spirit of the promotion and knows it's for people who may actually be interested in a purchase.
Yes, you could have gone there and got your free $100 with no intention of ever purchasing, per the rules. That doesn't make you less of a dishonest moocher.
Yet telephone merchants and door-to-door salesmen have no problem at all trying to waste my time. The companies that I have to deal with on a day-to-day basis also waste my valuable time by putting me on hold, sticking me in an endless chain of menus, and running me to a voicemail box that is on permanent "ignore". Forgive me if my heart doesn't bleed for poor downtrodden salesmen.
The types of people who are motivated to go out of their way to go to a car dealership and test drive a car just to get a free gift card probably aren't the kind of people who can afford high-end Cadillacs.
How in the hell is MichiganMan their target demographic? He's ALREADY driving a brand new car that he admits he is perfectly happy with! He's got a 2013 Ford Edge. What's he going to do, fall so madly in love with a Cadillac after a 10 min test drive that he's going to dump both his lifelong diehard brand loyalty to Ford AND his brand freaking new car to drop 45K on a Cadillac? Not...likely. He clearly was going in to get free money and nothing else.
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They eliminate the moochers by prescreening.
I wouldn't be surprised at all if they did in fact have gift cards available. The OP was just too obvious in his intentions.
Maybe not this time, maybe not this year, but a couple years down the line maybe he'll give Cadillac more consideration.
The purpose of marketing isn't to convert into a sale every time. They're building reputation, getting folks thinking about their cars, and hell, even getting people in them to test drive them.
That salesman wanted to make a sale right then and there. It does him no good if MichMan comes back 5 years later and buys a Caddy from some other salesman or maybe even some other dealership.
The purpose of marketing is to drive sales. Not five years down the road, but now. Do you think GM is going to wait five years to evaluate the success of this campaign, or do you think they'll look at this month's sales numbers and make that determination? The whole point is to get people in the door so they can by subjected to the high-pressure sales tactics of dealership salesmen. And the salesmen, for their part, are going to size you up the second you walk in and they aren't going to waste their time on someone who is clearly not there to buy a car.
You know, the kicker is that GM just might send him one in the mail. Not that he rightfully deserves it, but because they've been taking quite a few PR hits in the press lately.
You're fuckin' eh right Michiganman deserves the $100. If GM had NO intentions of living up to their advertisement, "Test drive a new Cadillac and receive $100", then they shouldn't have advertised it. That's defined as false advertisement, not "bait and switch". For those on this forum that can read, and have no comprehension issues, here is the advertisement again, dated "4-22-2014". Again, READ the first line, by Bill Peffer, U.S. vice president for Cadillac, "until the end of the month", which by my calendar is 4-30-14. [[YES! there IS an end date) http://gmauthority.com/blog/2014/04/...#ixzz2zuR3eBtx Nowhere does it say "only if you buy a Cadillac, or if we run out, or if the sales staff deems you "unqualified for the promotion". Someone is lying here. Either Michiganman, [[he does not meet GM's stipulated qualifications), GM or Bill Peffer, [[no intention of handing out $100 promos to "test drivers"), the Detroit News, [[interview never happened, or took a wide editorial license), Les Stanford, or the salesperson who deemed themselves judge and jury by deciding who should get what.
Despite the fact that he doesn't "deserve" anything, he never even test drove the vehicle. Maybe you need to read the promotion again.
And read it directly from GM, not an unaffiliated GM news aggregator.
Yes, he never test drove the vehicle because they said up-front that they were not going to honor their promotion.
I think the promotion is stupid, but they're setting themselves up for failure when they make such a bold move, but then you find out it's only talk.
It's the purpose of the advertisement, to get people who don't even consider Cadillac into the driver's seat of one. MichiganMan fits that bill.