] Friday, January 10, 2003
] "Detroit Project" Won't Play in Detroit
] Detroit TV stations are refusing to broadcast the Detroit
] Project's TV ads linking terrorism to gas-guzzing SUVs,
] and industry-funded think tanks like the Competitive
] Enterprise Institute have jumped in to attack the ads.
] Actually, the marketing link between SUVs and violence
] may run deeper than the Detroit Project realizes. The SUV
] craze got its start thanks to the first war in the
] Persian Gulf, which inspired automakers to adapt military
] vehicles for the consumer market. As even Fortune
] magazine admits, the auto industry has been deliberately
] marketing rollover-prone gaz-guzzlers as vehicles of
] aggression that appeal to consumers' "reptilian"
] instincts. Small wonder that,
] according to the industry's
] own market research, "the SUV is the car of choice for
] the nation's most self-centered people; and the bigger
] the SUV, the more of a jerk its driver is likely to be."
] Source: Detroit Free Press, January 10, 2003

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