Articles by Richard Read

The auto industry spends billions of dollars each year on TV ads, but few are worth remembering. In fact, there are many we'd rather forget.

Well, at least if Mayans are correct. December 21 is the last day on the 5125-year Mayan calendar, and there’s been growing buzz about the date being the Mayan Apocalypse. The public seems to become fascinated by apocalypse predictions. And a collection of General Motors dealers in Canada is banking on the Mayans -- not that their predictions of the world ending are correct, but that the public fascination will drive year-end sales. The Humberview Group owns four Buick, Chevrolet, and Cadillac dealerships around the Toronto area. And from now through the end of… well, everything, the group is holding a special sales promotion. The "End of the World Clearance Event" offers aren't too different from those you'll find at other dealerships this December, but Humberview dealers offer one additional, easy-to-keep promise: "If the world ends, you don't pay!" As ad campaigns go, this one's a winner: funny, well-designed, and thorough. The doomsday clock on the front page is a great touch, as are the series of radio spots that riff on the coming apocalypse. If all advertising were this thoughtful, we might have some hope for the world's future. As it is...well, let's talk in a few weeks. The Car Connection      

Fixing the problem of drinking and driving isn't easy. To really reduce drunk driving, enforcement has to be paired with education of the driving public. But that raises the question: how do you effectively do that? Sure, it's easy to convince schoolkids that drinking and driving is bad. But what about party-loving 20-somethings, most of whom are out on their own for the first time in their lives? We've seen this play out in our own lives, as tipsy friends have blown us off when we've tried to reason with them. They've fought back when we've tried to take their keys. How do you get them to "sober up" on their own? Allianz insurance company asked those very same questions, and in Brazil, it hired supersized ad agency Ogilvy to find answers. The "Drunk Mirror" Not so long ago, Brazil passed a zero-tolerance policy on drunk driving. Since then, Ogilvy has staged numerous campaigns to reduce the number of impaired drivers on the roads -- including issuing outrageously inflated bar tabs and employing "drunk" valets. The agency's newest campaign is a bit more high tech, employing a digital mirror -- basically, a video camera that projects reversed images onto a monitor disguised as a mirror. The catch is, the video is delayed by about a second, which creates a disconcerting lag for those looking into it. As you'll see in the video clip below, patrons have a good time interacting with the mirror for a bit, enjoying what they think is a tech-driven glitch. But then, the system slaps up some informative notes that reveal the point of the campaign -- notes like, "This is how slow your reflexes are after only a few drinks." The customers captured on video seem a little befuddled, then concerned. Some put down their drinks immediately. Take a look: The Car Connection  

Tea leaves, crystal balls, goat entrails: humankind has a huge arsenal of crazy tools for seeing into the future. But a new study from the data-crunchers at US firm LexisNexis says that there's a much more accurate way to learn someone's fate: just relax and look deep into his driving record. The nuts and bolts The US Motor Vehicle Record Mortality Study was conducted jointly by LexisNexis and RGA Reinsurance Company. Together, they pulled over 7.4 million motor vehicle records at random, sorting them into three piles: individuals with clean records, drivers with minor violations, and those with major violations. For the purposes of the study, major violations included "alcohol- or substance-related infractions, excessive speeding, and reckless or negligent driving". The two companies then took all that delicious, segmented data and cross-referenced it with the Social Security Death Master File. (Yes, there is such a thing.) They found that of the 7.4 million drivers included in the study, roughly 73,000 had died. Then it was just a matter of building a few handy Venn diagrams to determine if there was any correlation between driving history and death. And sure enough, those with major violations on their records were most likely to have died. And then things got weird But in the course of all that cross-checking, researchers noticed something strange: the people who had died hadn't necessarily died in vehicles. There seemed to be a linkage between major driving violations and folks' propensity to die, period. In other words, just as some employers look at applicants' credit ratings to see if they'd be trustworthy workers, LexisNexis and RGA found that driving records are a strong predictor of longevity. For you PowerPoint types, here are a few of the study's major bulletpoints: Drivers with major infractions have mortality rates 70% higher than those without such infractions. Drivers with six or more major infractions have a mortality rate that's 80% higher. Women were less likely than men to have major infractions on their driving records, but those who did were at far greater risk of dying than their male counterparts. Such women have a mortality rate that is 100% higher than other drivers, but for men, the figure sat at 61%. Even folks with minor violations face earlier deaths. The study found that drivers with between two and five infractions -- major or minor -- had a mortality rate 24% higher than their safer peers. For six or more infractions, the mortality difference jumped to 79%. Having just one major violation on a driving record was linked to a mortality rate 51% higher than drivers without any infractions. The moral of the story Number-crunchers and risk-management types like those at LexisNexis and RGA aren't usually in the habit of building hypotheses to explain such statistics. They simply see the correlation and use it to set insurance rates. But it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to understand that drivers with several major driving infractions may be more likely to make "iffy" lifestyle choices, like being heavy smokers or drinkers. Over time, those choices can lead to a greater chance of death. Bottom line  Auto insurance companies already look at motor vehicle records to set policy rates. As studies like this create more linkages between driving records and longevity, though, don't be surprised to find other agencies -- even employers -- peeking at your motor vehicle records. The Car Connection