In the last season of Top Gear, the three stooges made a journey across the same road. Of course, being Top Gear everything was made more dramatic than it actually is. Watch a clip of the episode below.
The Outlander Sport is also known as ASX in Europe and Japan. More videos of Mitsubishi's Most Dangerous Roads can be found in Mitsubishi North America's official Youtube channel here.
Oddly enough, Mitsubishi Motors Malaysia (MMM) also weighed in to capitalize on the Mitsubishi North America's ad campaign. MMM's official website actually posted the "Most Dangerous Road" ad and link, even though the model sold here does not even carry the same name (it is known on this side of the world as ASX) and does not feature 4WD.
The ASX is a pretty brilliant car. Aside from typical grouses on cheap interior trimmings (common on most Mitsubishi cars), comes full imported from Japan and kitted with more toys and gadgets than any other competitor, it is also sized just nice for an urban SUV. On paper, there is little reason for the car to not give the dominant and aging Honda CR-V a run for its money. But since its launch it did anything but gave the CR-V a run for its money. Sales were so bad that even a similarly priced 2WD Hyundai Tuscon 2.0 outsold the ASX by nearly 2 to 1. In a market that welcomes anything Japanese and views Korean cars with suspicion, it does says a lot about how far off the mark the ASX was. Not only that, Peugeot dealers actually shifts more 3008 out of their showroom than Mitsubishi does for its ASX. Like the ASX, the 3008 is a 2WD crossover with SUV-like pretensions.
I have always held the believe that our local market is not ready for a crossover. Local consumers don't like segment-straddling vehicles that they are not quite sure what to make of it. Just ask the Nissan Latio. Even Peugeot is smart enough to drop the crossover monicker in all its local marketing materials for the 3008. Toyota too did a similar thing with its 2WD 7-seater Rush which was more of an Avanza in a SUV body shell than anything else. UMW Toyota decided to market it clearly as an SUV. If some consumers choose to see it as an MPV by virtue of its 4WD ommission and 7-seater capacity then that's fine for them. When Hyundai introduced the new Tucson with 2WD, it had no concerns calling it an SUV, and so far sales have been pretty good in a market that is just beginning to accept Korean cars.
When I first saw a large billboard ad for the ASX - showing only a front three-quarter view with the word across it "ASX Active Sport Crossover," the gut feel is that MMM will be in for quite a bit of trouble with the ASX, but gave them a benefit of doubt. I thought maybe their market research pointed that consumers can accept this name. On hindsight, clearly whatever little market research (or product planning) done, it was very poor. It is already bad enough that the ASX have a front that is identical to the Lancer, or even the Lancer Sportback. When Proton introduced its Persona, whose front is identical to the Gen.2, even Proton knew that obviously the defining bits of the car is the unique rear and not the front and ads must always feature the car's rear and not the front. So to put on a billboard ad for a new model, showing an angle that looks exactly like another older model, with a name that no one knows what to make of it, is completely illogical in my opinion. The average person will just wonder why is there an ad for a blue Lancer called ASX?
My father asked me, "What is this crossover thing?" I think that says it all. But things didn't end there, Mitsubishi would later publish full page ads on major news dailies detailing all the features of the car. And I really mean ALL the features. It was information overload, with too many words, too many images. Again, my dad got lost less than halfway through. It was like someone literally took a page out of a catalogue, blow it up to newspaper page size and make it an ad. That's not how advertisements should be done. There are catalogues, and then there are advertisements. Ads should not overwhelm consumers with info.
A good marketer would have decided to spread out the budget for a smaller scale but a longer, sustained campaign, focusing on only ONE unique feature, or speaking of different virtues of the car at different weeks. Below is how Mitsubishi's Brazilian office did it - an ad that just talks about the ASX's knee airbag feature. It's the only SUV in its segment to feature it.
Mitsubishi Brazil also commissioned a TV ad to build up the urban-SUV image of the ASX. Watch it below.
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