Would *you* like a free car?

bonkey

OK,

as some/many of you know, I currently work in Switzerland. Things over here are a bit different to Ireland So, I thought I'd pose a few questions, given that we have a wide variety of political and economic believers here....

One thing I noticed recently was the number of cars which have company names, logo's etc. on them. When I asked my Swiss SO about this, she told me that iots fairly common over here for company cars to have the company name/logo/slogan/whatever on them, except for execs. So sales people etc. all travel in true "rep-mobiles".

Now....this leads to question 1. Would you drive a company car if it had advertising on it.

Things get more interesting, however. One of my mates is in a co-op called Mobility. You pay a small set amount per year, and when you want a car you can get one from the car-pool. You pay per hour and per km (really small rates though), and everything else is covered - they have reserved spaces in almost every car park, they supply you with a "Mobility card" for paying for gas, and all that. You can get everything from a SMART to a van, including 2-seater soft-top performance cars.

BUT - the cars all have Mobility's name, logo, etc on it. So - you are once again carrying advertising. Mobility is a co-op, it doesnt make profit for anyone, so its not an evil corporate.....but you're still supporting the whole advertising evil while availing of easy and cheap car access, benefiting you, your pocket, and the environment.

So - question 2....would you use a facility like this, despite it embracing the "evil" of all-invasive advertising.

Now - the biggie. Another on of my mates was recently thinking of buying a car when he got a call from a tele-marketing company (yes, I hate cold-calling telemarketers too).

"Would you like a free car"

I kid you not.

If he wants, he can get a basic SMART, for free, with the option to buy it at the end of two years for about £1500. The catch? It carries advertising. Not big Dublin-bus all-over advertising - just the same type of stuff which so many other cars over here have. I think he may have to let them change it every 6 months, but thats about it.

So - question 3 - Would you like a free car?

jc

JustHalf

When I get a car, it will have to be MY car... a car that is just right. The only way I'd drive a car with advertising is if it was a rally car!

So, to answer the questions: no, no, no. It's too restrictive. I can't change the paint job on it, for example. I don't like being limited like that.

Dr. Loon

I'd take the poxy free car!! Who cares if there's advertising on the damn thing....? We're already so saturated with blatant advertising that it doesn't really matter that much. And it's a car you then have mobility, go where you want.... the advantages far outweigh the dis-advantages.

azezil

I suppose it'd depend on the size of the advertisment and what i'd be advertising. Don't really see any problem with it

JustHalf

Originally posted by Dr. Loon
I'd take the poxy free car!! Who cares if there's advertising on the damn thing....? We're already so saturated with blatant advertising that it doesn't really matter that much.

The high level saturation of advertising is no reason to increase it further, particularly in what would be considered a private space.

Originally posted by Dr. Loon
And it's a car you then have mobility, go where you want.... the advantages far outweigh the dis-advantages.

Mmh. I'd get the bus. Or the train. Or buy a bike.

Gordon

Sometimes you really need a car - moving house, lugging gear around etc. I'd love to get a car, if it meant putting up with adverts on the side or inside, fair enough. I never take notice of what is on cars and vans enough for me to inadvertantly choose to take service from the relative company.

It's like being in a room with a smelly fart - you get used to it after a while and start not to notice it.

Give me the tele-marketers number and I will start bugging them phoning them up all the time "GIVE MEH A FREH CEHR!!"

As for the car pool, I've heard about this in Sweden too. It is a great idea.
Dublin corpo is considering a bicycle pool as far as I know too. (Tho' it may make the bikes rusty )

GoneShootin

as homer would say

mmmm, free car

swiss

If I got an opportunity like that in Ireland, I'd jump at the chance (excepting the fact that insurance would be sky - high )

It's just advertising, it doestn't mean we endorse the product or service. When we buy a bottle of coke (or whatever) we don't parade around this fact in the hope that everybody is going to do the same.

For many, the car they drive is an expression of their individuality, and for those, the fact that in order to get one they may have to sacrifice that individuality will be an offputting factor in their choice.

I, on the other hand, just see a car as a piece of transportation equipment. No matter what car we drive, it still carries advertising in some shape or form (even if it's just the manufacturers logo). For considerably less expense, what's the big deal about having a little more advertising to compensate?

Doc

Originally posted by JustHalf
Mmh. I'd get the bus. Or the train. Or buy a bike.

Last time I looked the buses had advertising on them as had the trains, well the darts have and the other ones have the company logo all over them just like most bikes have the makers name plasterd on.
Id take a FREE car with a company logo on it. Annyone who wouldent is a bit of a snob in my opinion.

Bard

Yes, I'd take it too... are yeh mad?! - A big YES to each of your questions above!

--

However I've just thought of this... would they check up regularly on me were I to take one of their cars?... i.e.: would they pop around every so often to make sure I hadn't gotten the advertising removed or gotten the car re-sprayed?

Victor

Originally posted by swiss
For many, the car they drive is an expression of their individuality, and for those, the fact that in order to get one they may have to sacrifice that individuality will be an offputting factor in their choice.

You mean you can express your individuality, your uniqueness with a mass produced consumer good?

But my answer is probably yes.

seamus

I would definitely say yes, at least for a few years. At the moment I'm a student with a full licence, but little money to spread around, a car that constantly breaks down and sky-high insurance. So if it worked out cheaper per year (I'm assuming insurance is included in the subscription), then I would defo go for it until I had a good enough job to support my own car properly.

Typedef

Are you mad?
Do you think I am going to stop someone giving me a free car because it has a company sticker on the side of it? Get some kind of a grip.

No way, fscking nice one free car.

Here's what you do.
Take the car and one day when it is raining wait until a company member(preferably a group of people) who wouldn't take the company car with the sticker are passing by a puddle in the pouring rain, on their way to the charter bus that has no stickers, then accelerate to 60mph in your sticker-jaguar-car and drive through the puddle drenching the company-car-less. Next put your head out the window and yell "SUCKERS". Give the suckers the bird and drive home.

QED.

gandalf

Well as I am not really a car person, I use it as a means of getting from A to B and don't really care what the hell it is after that, I too would jump at getting a free car.

One problem that no one has mentioned here is the Revenue. If they get wind that your using a free car that they will probably nail you with additional tax (someone can correct me on this if they want)

Gandalf.

bonkey

Originally posted by gandalf

One problem that no one has mentioned here is the Revenue. If they get wind that your using a free car that they will probably nail you with additional tax (someone can correct me on this if they want)

That, and insurance are the major reasons I see it not working in Ireland. No such problems here.

What about the "mobility" idea - I could see that working in Ireland, but I guess thats only if we had a public transport system worth talking about. Its sop funny over here...if a train is more than 2 minutes late, there *must* be an announcement explaining why, and after 3 minutes, people start looking very disgruntled.

Was recently on a run where the train arrived a shocking 5 minutes late. The other people on the platform looked horrified at this breakdown of civilisation. Arrived at our destination a whole 2 minutes late (made up time somewhere) and another apoloigy was issued. The look on the other passengers' face was priceless. Kinda like "no use apologising now, you've cost me a whole 2 minutes of my day and everything is now ruined".

I always wondered why there are very few Swiss people in Ireland

jc

swiss

Originally posted by Bonkey:
Was recently on a run where the train arrived a shocking 5 minutes late. The other people on the platform looked horrified at this breakdown of civilisation. Arrived at our destination a whole 2 minutes late (made up time somewhere) and another apoloigy was issued. The look on the other passengers' face was priceless. Kinda like "no use apologising now, you've cost me a whole 2 minutes of my day and everything is now ruined".

lol. If a train is on time in Ireland, it's early. If it's five minutes late, it's early. If it's ten min... you get the idea. It really is disgraceful that the shameful public transportation system is forcing people to use private transport where rocketing insurance and tax costs are draining what meagre incomes most people are able to earn. The government should definitely give some consideration to giving tax breaks to those wishing to car-pool.

Originally posted by bonkey:
I always wondered why there are very few Swiss people in Ireland

Ah, well there's one at least (j/k)

bonkey

Originally posted by swiss

The government should definitely give some consideration to giving tax breaks to those wishing to car-pool.

What I've always thought disgraceful is that if your company gives you a parking space to use, then thats just a perk.

If they pay you to travel by public transport, thats taxed as "benefit in kind".

Personally, I always thought it should be the other way round.

jc

JustHalf

Originally posted by Doc
Last time I looked the buses had advertising on them as had the trains, well the darts have and the other ones have the company logo all over them just like most bikes have the makers name plasterd on.
Id take a FREE car with a company logo on it. Annyone who wouldent is a bit of a snob in my opinion.

I think I'll adopt a similar attitude.

Last time I looked, the buses and the darts are public transport. Public. When you are in them you are in a public area. Therefore, the advertisements on or in them are on or in a public area.

When you are in your car, you are in a private area. Private. I don't like the idea of advertisements intruding my privacy, without a choice to turn them off (as I can do with a television or radio in my house, and, if I could be bothered, with the web too). I'd feel uncomfortable. I would be incapable of escaping it.

Doesn't anyone else find the idea of advertising invading their privacy the least bit sinister?

Add to that the fact that I will be forced to be associated with the product, that I may or may not like. Even if I did not like the product, or agree with the practices of the company, I would still be trapped in the association.

Public transport is good enough for me.

Oh, and Typedef... unless you were an exec, the likelihood of a company giving you a Jaguar as a company car is exceptionally remote. Something nearer to a Ford Mondeo or a Volkswagen Vento would be more likely. You're also forgetting the fact that people still have the option to buy their own car -- which is something I will be doing, when there is a need.

seamus

I think the question that would catch most of us yes-ers out is -

"Would you drive the car if it had the €ircom mouse and an ad saying 'Choose eircom for quality internet' on the outside'?"

I think not

Typedef

Top 20 Ways Microsoft Would Change The Auto Industry

20. The radio would be computerized, but you'd need to install 64 Meg of RAM, a new sound card, a game card, a new video driver, a CD drive, and type C:\radio\talk\rush*.* to get it to play.
19. The entire engine wouldn't be in the bay at once, and the car would have to keep stopping and starting to load in the relevant parts.

18. The speedometer would read 70 even though you are only doing 50.

17. You would have to have a full service every 500 miles.

16. Your car would refuse to start with a message "Abort, Retry, Fail?"

15. For some reason the engine controller would need a 1G hard disc and would take 5 minutes to boot up.

14. The steering wheel would be replaced with a mouse and you'd need to memorize the keyboard short-cut for "Brake".

13. A particular model year of car wouldn't be available until after that year- instead of before it.

12. They wouldn't build their own engines but form a cartel with their engine supplier. The latest engine would have 16 cylinders, multi-point fuel injection and 4 turbos, but it would be a side-valve design so you could use Model-T Ford parts on it. There would be an "Engium Pro" with bigger turbos, but it would be slower on most existing roads.

11. The air bag system would say "Are you sure?" before going off.

10. New seats would require everyone to have the same butt size.

9. We would all have to switch to Microsoft Gas.

8. The U.S. government would be forced to rebuild all of the roads for Microsoft cars; they will drive on the old roads, but they run very slowly.

7. The oil, alternator, gas and engine warning lights would be replaced by a single 'General Car Fault' warning light.

6. Sun MotorSystems would make a car that was solar-powered, twice as reliable and five times as fast, but would run on only 5% of the roads.

5. You would be constantly pressured to upgrade your car.

4. You could have only one person in the car at a time, unless you bought a Car95 or CarNT -- but then you would have to buy ten more seats and a new engine.

3. Occasionally, your car would die for NO apparent reason and you would have to restart it. Strangely, you would just accept this as normal.

3a. Occaionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail to restart and you'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this, too.

2. Every time the lines of the road were repainted, you would have to buy a new car.

1. People would get excited about the new features of the latest Microsoft cars, forgetting that these same features had been available from other car makers for years.

JustHalf

Originally posted by bonkey
What about the "mobility" idea - I could see that working in Ireland, but I guess thats only if we had a public transport system worth talking about. Its sop funny over here...if a train is more than 2 minutes late, there *must* be an announcement explaining why, and after 3 minutes, people start looking very disgruntled.

Ah, the joys of the continent.

Victor

This post swerves off topic.

Originally posted by swiss
lol. If a train is on time in Ireland, it's early. If it's five minutes late, it's early. If it's ten min... you get the idea. It really is disgraceful that the shameful public transportation system is forcing people to use private transport where rocketing insurance and tax costs are draining what meagre incomes most people are able to earn. The government should definitely give some consideration to giving tax breaks to those wishing to car-pool.

Not really fair, I was working on a project years ago where they were worried about vibration from the nearby railway (say when a 500 tonne goods train went by). The train arrived at an intermediate point within 3 minutes of my estimate (estimate made 2 days previously). The seismologist was shocked, as many trains in bigger countries can easily be 3 hours late.

While public transport isn't ideal, it isn't 'shameful', perhaps individual parts are, but please remember that Switzerland has twice the population in half the area of Ireland. Is has twice the railways, but not as much road. We now exist in a low tax economy (yes, true). So how are we meant to maintain services with less tax and more roads?

People complain when they a redenied planning permission for a house in the countryside. I say rightly so, go live in a village, where you have access to transport, health and social services, post, shops and the like. I will admit to one thing, we have our fair share of selfish muppets in this country.

Originally posted by seamus
"Would you drive the car if it had the €ircom mouse and an ad saying 'Choose eircom for quality internet' on the outside'?" I think not

Yeah, feels like selling your soul doesn't it. Of course you would have to insist on only carrying truthful, honest, etc. advertising.

Originally posted by bonkey
If they pay you to travel by public transport, thats taxed as "benefit in kind". Personally, I always thought it should be the other way round.

An employer can provide a monthly / yearly ticket with a registered transport service, free of tax / PRSI / BIK.

bonkey

Originally posted by JustHalf
When you are in your car, you are in a private area. Private. I don't like the idea of advertisements intruding my privacy,

Err - the advertising is on the outside. It doesnt intrude your privacy. If it intrudes on anyone, its those outside the car seeing it.

But then again, they cant turn off billboards and other "public area" advertising either, so why is this different?

Your argument is aking to saying that having advertising put up on the outside wall of the apartment block you live in somehow infringes your privacy inside your apartment. I fail to see how.

Doesn't anyone else find the idea of advertising invading their privacy the least bit sinister?

I dont find it sinister, but I do think there's limits which advertising is rapidly going beyond. I dont want to live in a "BladeRunner" world with big floaty signs everywhere.....

I'm curious as to whether or not advertisers have considered the problem of information overload. As they put advertising in more and more places, it becomes less and less effective, as individual ads rarely stand out.

Maybe they'll soon realise this and cycle back to the "less is more" approach.

We can live in hope.

By the way....I havent decided yet if I would like a free car, but its mostly from the angle of "association" rather than invasion. From that angle, I agree with your argument 100%

jc

JustHalf

Originally posted by bonkey
Err - the advertising is on the outside. It doesnt intrude your privacy. If it intrudes on anyone, its those outside the car seeing it.

I would feel the advertising on the outside of the car, while inside the car. I would be wrapped inside the advertisement, and would be unable to escape. It would not be private as it would be intrusive this way.

I'm probably not explaining myself very well, but there you go!

Originally posted by bonkey
But then again, they cant turn off billboards and other "public area" advertising either, so why is this different?

It is different because it is public. I would like somewhere I could escape this.

Originally posted by bonkey
Your argument is aking to saying that having advertising put up on the outside wall of the apartment block you live in somehow infringes your privacy inside your apartment. I fail to see how.

Well, I'd STILL feel it's presence.

Originally posted by bonkey
By the way....I havent decided yet if I would like a free car, but its mostly from the angle of "association" rather than invasion. From that angle, I agree with your argument 100%

Fair enough.

swiss

OK, I know this is going somewhat off-topic again, but I think I'll just deal with this point

Originally posted by Victor:
I was working on a project years ago where they were worried about vibration from the nearby railway (say when a 500 tonne goods train went by). The train arrived at an intermediate point within 3 minutes of my estimate (estimate made 2 days previously). The seismologist was shocked, as many trains in bigger countries can easily be 3 hours late.

Fair enough. I still think that public transportation in Ireland leaves an awful lot to be desired. I also think it is shameful for two reasons
a) Only a relatively small percentage of the road tax we pay goes back into the development and maintenance of our transportation infrastructure
b) Recent events highlighted in the news (including the cost over-runs in the mini-CTC signalling contract) lead me to believe that the resources that are being made available are being squandered by bureaucratic procedures and unscrupulous executives.

Anyway, back to the whole advertising issue:

As I've mentioned before, if the opportunity to get a cheap car arose out of those circumstances, I would take it. However, it does demonstrate the lengths to which some companies will go to achieve product/service recognition. In an increasingly market driven society, it does not seem to matter what product is on offer - all that interests market departments is making sure that as many people as possible are aware of it's existence.

The analogy bonkey made to a 'blade runner' world, with floating signs everywhere is indeed disconcerting. Advertising is, IMO becoming more and more intrusive. Take the internet for example, where pop up windows (a pet hate :mad: ) are becoming more and more prevalent, and can sometimes appear when you are viewing sites that normally do not contain these forms of advertising.

One thing I would like to know is if people who would be opposed to such an idea (of getting the ad - car) have 'adware' on their computer. I don't see much of a difference between the two.