Aid Globe Santa to win Fiat 500; GM plays futbol
The folks at Kelly Fiat in Peabody love raffles and Globe Santa. This year, they are combining the two by donating a 2012 Fiat 500 Pop model for a raffle to benefit the charity.
Globe Santa, established in 1956, has spent more than $1 million annually on gifts for underprivileged children. In 2011, 32,000 families benefitted, with 100 percent of all the public’s donations going to toys and shipping costs.
The Fiat raffle will get the 2012 Christmas season off to an early start because the Fiat drawing is scheduled to be raffled on July 24, assuming enough entries are received by then.
Ticket sales will be limited to 1,500 and can be bought for $100 (one ticket), $200 (three tickets), or $300 (five tickets).
The easiest way to enter is online at www.globesanta.org/raffle or by calling 617-929-2333.
GM: Futbol not Football
In the United States, the Super Bowl of advertising is … well, the Super Bowl. To many viewers, the commercials’ appeal is as strong as interest in the game.
That means General Motors’ decision not to advertise during in next winter’s Super Bowl is a big deal. Instead, they are putting their dollars behind soccer power Manchester United. This is sending two messages out into the world:
1. GM’s global market strategy is more important than the US market. Another way of saying it is that soccer is more important than football.
2. The returns on Super Bowl ads (like Red Sox tickets) have reached a tipping point.
Joel Ewanick, GM’s global chief marketing officer, notes that Manchester United sells more jerseys worldwide than the 32 National Football League teams combined.
And ManU’s fan base is 659 million, more than double the US population; soccer fans number more than three billion. In comparison, the Super Bowl’s US TV audience was 111.3 million.
Just for the record: Chevrolet’s Silverado pickup truck ad was one of the more memorable spots in this year’s Super Bowl telecast.
It’s Game On at Jaffarian
One of the challenges in being a big auto dealership is being big enough to matter to the manufacturer and corporate headquarters while retaining a local touch.
Gone are the days when a dealership was located downtown and serviced a single city; nowadays, they’re more often located on a numbered highway and draw customers from a larger region.
That’s where initiatives such as Jaffarian’s Game On program come into play.
For every new or used vehicle bought or leased by a resident of one of 14 participating towns, the Jaffarian Automotive Group (Volvo, Toyota, Scion) donates $50 to that town’s athletic programs. Jaffarian is a fourth-generation family-owned business.
In May, CEO Gary Jaffarian presented a check for $2,100 to the North Andover Athletic Association during halftime at the girls’ lacrosse game against Westford Academy, the latest installment in more than $22,000 that’s been awarded to local athletic programs to date.
North Andover Athletic Association president Mike Coakley says the group will use its Game On funds to help buy and maintain capital equipment, including a new portable PA system, team recognition banners to display in the gymnasium, and record boards for indoor and outdoor track teams.
In conjunction with the program, students from the eight participating high schools (representing 14 communities) are invited to take part in producing a Jaffarian TV commercial to promote high school athletics.
The high schools are Amesbury, Andover, Haverhill, Masconomet (Boxford, Middleton, Topsfield), Newburyport, North Andover, Pentucket (Groveland, Merrimac, West Newbury), and Triton (Newbury, Rowley, Salisbury).
In addition, Jaffarian often distributes $250 Game On tickets in the eight participating communities. Buyers from one of the 8 communities save an additional $250 on their next lease or purchase of any vehicle from Jaffarian Volvo Toyota Scion. The $250 is to be used after a consumer has negotiated the price on a lease or purchase at Jaffarian Volvo, Toyota, Scion. Jaffarian tells people to keep the ticket up their sleeves and then pull it out after the price is negotiated.
Juicing up the Volt
Battery technology improvements continue to be incremental as shown by Chevrolet’s announcement that the 2013 Volt will have a 38-mile all-electric range, an increase of three miles.
Those 38 miles are gas and tailpipe-emissions free.
Of course, the Volt’s attraction is its onboard gas-powered engine-generator, which extends driving range to 344 miles for a 380- mile range.
New for 2013 will be a Hold mode that allows Volt drivers to direct when the vehicle uses the gas motor, saving the battery charge for city driving, where the EV mode is most efficient.
The Volt’s EPA estimates are 98 mph in EV mode, 37 mpg in gas-only, and 62 mpg combined.
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