Author: Kim du Toit

When The Market Bites Back

Corporate Fuckery, Management, Marketing / Advertising

Probably one of the first golden rules of business is “Never anger your existing customers, and never ignore those customers in chasing after new customers”.

I seem to bang on about this endlessly, but I’m always reminded of just how stupid management can be in ignoring that rule.

Now add on an unbelievably-stupid rationale for changing a company’s product line, and…

Wait.

There’s a much better way to look at this foolishness.

First, I invite you to watch Richard Hammond talking about some new Porsche he test drives at the old Top Gear track.  Because if you watch his glee and excitement, then this little video about Porsche’s idiocy becomes all the more understandable.  (Note especially the effect of Porsche’s marketing decisions on their share price and earnings.)

Nice one, dickheads.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

And in Classical Thoughts:

And seeing as it’s Halloween Week:

This one’s for Reader Stencil:

And speaking of making wise choices:

Now go out and get that Halloween candy because apparently, handing out boxes of .22 ammo to the kiddies is frowned upon, for some reason.  Blame the Democrats for that one.

Old-Time Marvels

Architecture, Beauty

I recently saw this SOTI:

…and I was immediately reminded of a pic of some medieval town I’d seen at C.W.’s place a while back, which triggered a similar response from me:

Add “Without aerial photography or observation”  to the above list.

I don’t know how they did it, but they did, and it’s wonderful.  I stand in awe.

This “Western civilization” is a fine thing, isn’t it?

Vulnerability

Drive Time

And the hits just keep on coming:

Volkswagen will pause production of one of its most important cars next week amidst growing concerns of a chip shortage that could cripple its outputs.

Chipmaker Nexperia has frozen supply in a fallout from the ongoing US-China trade dispute, causing major disruption for the German automotive giant.

The Dutch government – under pressure from the US Trump administration – seized control of Chinese-owned Nexperia last month, citing intellectual property concerns.

In response, China curbed exports of its finished products that are needed by European car makers.

Of course, VW lies like a Democrat politician:

Volkswagen said earlier this week that it had ‘long planned’ to pause production of the Golf hatchback – its longest-running model and one of its biggest-selling products – at the Wolfsburg factory from next week but initially denied any connection with chip supply chain concerns. 

However, on Wednesday the car maker told workers at other plants it cannot rule out assembly line stoppages due to the ‘dynamic situation’.

Yesterday, VW issued an internal letter to staff saying production had not yet been affected by chip shortages, but it could not ‘rule out an impact on production in the short term’ over supply chain issues. 

And I get mocked for hankering after the good old days…


Oh, you wanted color?

Q.E.D.