The Detroit auto show needs a new direction
Once upon a time it was all about the news, but now the news is old
There is no doubt that auto shows are going to be around for years to come — the Detroit and Toronto shows are just two examples of many — but the focus of at least one is going to have to change.
I’m speaking today about the North American International Auto Show, held each January in Detroit, which opens to the public Saturday and is the subject of much of the coverage in today’s issue of Toronto Star Wheels.
The Detroit Auto Show has been the Big Dog for as long as just about anybody can remember. It was the “must-attend” show for anybody involved in the auto industry, from CEOs to journalists. It was where new cars were introduced and daring advances were announced.
It was excitement and buzz.
The thrill is not exactly gone — it’s still a spectacle of beautiful shiny new vehicles and dry ice and music and very good looking men and women on hand to answer each and every question about the product they’re representing — but Detroit 2016 was not particularly exciting and there was a noticeable lack of buzz during the two media preview days held at the beginning of this week.
Jerry Chenkin, president of Honda Canada, had this observation.
“If you remember 2008 and 2009,” he said, “when the industry was in the doldrums, this (Cobo Hall, site of the Detroit show) was a very dreary place.
“But then things picked up and sales records were being set and for several years there was a real sense of euphoria. I suggest the euphoria has levelled off and that’s why things seem a little quieter.”
To that, I would add these observations.
A number of manufacturers didn’t participate at Detroit this year, including Tesla, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar and Range Rover. Their absence left some holes in display space.
The week before the Detroit show, an electronics trade show is held in Las Vegas. Called CES (Consumer Electronics Show), in recent years it has become a showcase for the hightech industry and it’s where announcements about technical advancements are made.
Where once upon a time, those high-tech advances were revealed in Detroit, they are now being made in Las Vegas and that has taken away a significant amount from the Motor City’s raison d’être.
In fact, Toronto Star Wheels’ tech expert/columnist Gerry Malloy attended this year’s CES show and didn’t go to Detroit.
The other major reason is the aggressiveness of the automakers’ marketing and PR people. Detroit boasts that 6,000 motoring journal- ists are accredited each year but there are almost double that number of industry professionals who have to justify their existence.
So while “unveilings” and “debuts” are scheduled each day in Detroit, by the time the coverings are pulled off the cars and trucks, the news is frequently already old.
On Tuesday, for instance, Lincoln and GMC had back-to-back press conferences scheduled for the introductions of the new Continental and the 2017 Acadia.
But the stories, photos, technical data and anything else you would want to know about those cars had already been on their company websites for hours and had been published out on motoring websites and in some newspapers and on TV that morning, well in advance of the “official” announcements.
This is not to mention the “leaks” of photographs and other information that some favoured publications receive well in advance of preview days.
The Toronto auto show in February is a must-see for anybody in the market for a new car, or who is just curious to see where the industry is going
It is a challenging time for media and, in light of all of the above, whether newspapers, magazines, websites — what have you — will want to continue to either pay to send reporters to Detroit or to buy stories from freelancers about announcements already out there is something they all will be considering going forward.
The Canadian International Auto Show, of course, is a different kettle of fish. By the time mid-February rolls around, there are usually few — if any — unveilings scheduled for Toronto.
But for the 6.5 million people living in the GTA, the show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre is a must-see for anybody in the market for a new car or who is just curious to see where the industry is going.
It’s the biggest auto showroom in Canada and everything is right there under one roof. The Toronto auto show knows what it is and does it very well. And Detroit is a great show too.
But Detroit has traditionally been a place of news and that’s going, if not already gone. If it wants to get its mojo back, it will have to find a new direction.