I watched a commercial for Infiniti the other night that made me go "Hmmmmmmmmmm....."

Beautiful images of all the Infiniti cars EXCEPT a Q45!!! What gives?

Any thoughts on this?

Because the Q is a car they sell to the customer that is just browsing the dealership, or the Infiniti customer that's looking to upgrade. The majority of luxury lines do this with the exception of Jaguar and Audi. It's rare to see a flagship advertised. I'd go more into depth but there's no short way to explain it the way Nissan North America told us during training a couple years ago.

Infiniti is different from what it was in 1990, when the flagship -was- the brand. They've taken the BMW approach of promoting a flashy entry-level car and waiting on its customer base to move up every couple years. When you think of BMW, you immediately think of the 3, giving the brand a youthful sporting image without compromising its upscale intentions.

Its odd to me. When I think of Acura, I still think of the Legend. When I think of Cadillac, I think of the Escalade. I still think of "Q45" when I think of Infiniti.

There was a time, a decade ago, when rappers endorsed our Qs.

I guess it's a good marketing strategy though... for many people, once they've made one purchase, that price point becomes a threshold. "I paid $38K for that G, so for only $10k more I could upgrade to an M" is what they hope you'll think...

Heath

Yeah, we're running the spot now. It's not bad.