Russian Apple Carts and Renaming Mitsubishi - PRESS PREVIEW DAY @ THE 2010 NEW YORK AUTO SHOW

Aaaaaand the Greatest Name Fail of the 2010 Auto Show and Worst Customer Service Awards both go to… Mitsubishi! Come on down!

Introducing Mitsubishi’s Zero Emission’s Vehicle, the “iMiev”. Before we go any further “miev” means stinky in German, not cool. Especially not in the auto making business when some of the strongest brands in the world are German. “iMiev” stands for Mitsubishi Innovative Electric Vehicle. The “i” that precedes “miev” stands for the “i” series of compact Mitsubishi cars in Japan, clearly a rip off from Apple’s branding. We even asked, “Wait, so does the ‘i’ stand for anything? Interactive? Anything at all?” Response, “Nope. Just an ‘i’.”
Although I was very impressed with the technology, unique design, and the enthusiastic pitch by the great Mitsubishi PR man, we’ll call him Ricky Real-Deal, the only triggers “i Miev” sparked in my head were, Apple and Russia. “Have you seen Apple’s new Russian scooter?” “You mean the iMiev, right?”

Ricky Real-Deal, told us openly, “I think the name sucks.” Thank you! An enthusiastic brand representative that is able to admit obvious fault while not jeopardizing his allegiance to the product and company. Big ups to you, Ricky. He then graciously passed us along to the PR rep so that we could get to talking.

Enter Linda Lame-o (name has been changed, but still fitting), who could barely finish a sentence without saying “um like” or “I don’t know.” Even worse, she was chilly, unkind, unhelpful and quite possibly the worst brand ambassador a company could hope for.

Linda, here is our card; you suck, you car name sucks, Ricky’s cool, stay green, and call us when your cerebral cortex returns from vacation.

Renaming help? How about Mitsubitchi?