Firestone Tires Me Out

I can’t believe what came in today’s mail- -An eight page flyer from FIRESTONE, "America’s Home for Tires and Service". "GUARANTEED! We’ll meet any price any day!" It says that right on the front. Who is this aimed at? People without TV? People who don’t read? (Think about that for a minute.)

I flipped through it. There’s a "performance tire" section with a picture of a tire with the strip of "high grip rubber" actually peeled away from the tire "for illustration purposes" it says. But I saw this same thing on TV, and it was NOT just for illustration purposes- -People had died.

Embarrassed executives are all over TV explaining why their big time companies are letting us down- -United Airlines has their boss reading a cue card in such an amateurish way that you can see his eyes moving as he reads the lines. It’s under a minute. Didn’t he think it was important enough to memorize his little pitch so he could look straight into the camera at us and at least attempt to convince us he means it? Small time mattress dealers look better on TV. "C’mon down and pound a king size! Everything must go!"

And the Ford guy. My goodness. Figure out how to stand and speak at the same time. Love the accent. What is it? Australian Arabic? Yeah, that plays well in Middle America. Hire an actor. (Whoops, you can’t. Commercial actors are on

strike!! And to think- -It’s because big corporations don’t want to pay actors a living wage to do their commercials!! This is so perfect!!)

We believed Lee Iacocca when he used to do his own Chrysler pitches. He had it memorized. He had it rehearsed. He had it nailed. And enough people believed him that the whole company turned around. He looked us straight in the eye and said they had changed the way they were going to do everything. And it worked.

Even David Oreck, as annoying as he is, has it memorized. He looks like a scared rodent, but he looks right at you and tells you he has made the best vacuum cleaner there is.

And Dave Thomas from Wendy’s. And the late Orville Redenbacher. And Charles Schwab. And a dozen others national and local. Even guys like this: "Have YOU been involved in an accident either on the job or off?" (Where else is there?) "I know how to sue the pants off people and get you money."

So what’s wrong with these Firestone, Ford and United Airlines guys?

Arrogance. This doesn’t happen to them and they are going to try to will it away.

But going on TV is not the boardroom. The camera doesn’t lie. In fact, it’s very good at exposing insincerity and hypocrisy. That’s why people take years to learn the craft of acting to do it well so it doesn’t look like anything but natural.

This Firestone brochure is an act of a company that believes the public is too dumb to notice what’s been going on for the past few weeks, although it appears to be the past few years. Advertising phrases such as "smooth quiet highway ride" and "civilized highway luxury" are beyond insensitive if you’ve seen any of the mangled twisted death traps that appear nightly on television.

Who’s to blame? Why did it take a small town case in Texas to get these giants to fess up and cop to what they’ve known for years? Guess what, guys? We’re NOT that dumb. We smell a rat and before this is settled it could truly be a major blowout- -The whole Firestone tire business flat. America wants no crap. We are TIRED of it.

And now Congress is going to act. No, I mean that just as you think—like acting. Time to get some good sound bites and airtime- -Hey! It’s an election year. "And I’m the Congressman that works for you day and night- -TIRElessly." Full radial coverage. By the time it’s over, you’ll want to puncture some of these guys as well. There’ll be enough hot air to inflate not only Congressional egos but a full set of steel belted white walls.

I don’t know if we’ll ever see any of this come as clean as a new coat of ArmorAll, but I can tell you one thing--it’s more than time for some of these people to retire.