Put yourself in this position: you make good, solid, scruffy cars. People buy them. Some years, people buy a few. Some years, people buy a lot. Which of the following would you like:

  • No ad agency at all. Hopefully, people will remember your brand or read Consumer Reports and check price tags.
  • An advertising agency focused on sales. You’re not going to charm people into buying your cars, but if you show them the numbers, you can persuade them.
  • A dazzling, high-concept advertising agency. Why not persuade people to change their lifestyle to love your brand? Why not convince them that they are superior to everyone else by virtue of the car they drive? And why not do all that with a wink and a nod, so the other advertising agencies know your know what’s up

If you choose the latter option, you need to learn a lesson, and that of Randall Rothenberg Where the Moon Suckers is the best way to learn!

The book covers the Subaru/Wieden Kennedy partnership of the early 1990s. Subaru was a Japanese car company that made cheap, reliable cars for mostly middle-class people. And Wieden Kennedy was an ad agency that had essentially created Nike’s lifestyle and image.

by Randall Rothenberg Where the Moon Suckers explains the problem: a distinctive product may need a cultural movement to support it, but a solid, reliable and affordable product never does. Randall Rothenberg’s Where the Suckers Moon doesn’t cover exactly how to avoid this, but he does give readers a couple of good tips.

First, try to find an advertising agency with the right experience. That doesn’t mean experience launching the same type of product, but experience crafting the same type of launch. Second, try to find someone whose position in the ad industry is similar to her position in your industry; a top-tier agency with lots of awards was not a good fit for a profitable but nondescript car. And finally, as Randall Rothenberg says Where the Moon Suckers drive home again and again: know when to cut your losses and switch to something else. (By the time Subaru found another agency, most of the people involved, both on Subaru’s side and on Wieden and Kennedy’s side, had quit or been fired.)