Ad Spot: Buick

Kentucky has caught up and there is a close if low scoring NCAA National Championship game. As one of the premier March Madness sponsors Buick gets to put its name on the official watch anywhere app and buy lots of commercials in the regular broadcast. Unfortunately, Buick is spending all that money on a brand commercial that isn't as good as it should be considering the cash outlay. For unexplained reasons half the people have absolutely zero idea that they are staring directly at a Buick right in front of them. Sure, Buick's lineup is recently refreshed but all of the models have been out for at least a few years with the same general shape and a few of them sell in significant numbers to be pretty common cars on the road. Of course everyone involved is highly impressed by the cars that they see and are shocked to learn that they are Buicks. Certainly the ad aims to get more people to consider a Buick for their next purchase and will get some people to do so but I struggle to see the audience getting really excited about a product that acknowledges its lack of popularity and brand heat. The ad works well enough as a standard primetime TV ad but when you are spending nearly Superbowl type money you would expect something more memorable so people can you know remember your brand.

Looking at Luxury Brands Selling Prices

There is always a lot of talk about which luxury brand is the best, which luxury brand sells the most, and which brands even deserve to be called luxury altogether. To clear up some of these questions let's take a look at the average selling prices of the biggest eleven brands that claim to sell luxury cars in the United States. While the manufacturers do not release their average transaction prices in the way that they do with overall sales figures here is our best attempt to see who gets the most for their cars on average. At the top is Mercedes-Benz with an average asking price of around 55,000 per vehicle. Mercedes has by far the most models available for sale in the 75,000+ range. Second is BMW which is able to average a little over 50,000 per every vehicle sold. BMW falls behind Mercedes by offering fewer models over 100,000. Up third is Cadillac that benefits greatly by moving a significant amount of its pricey Escalades every month. Following Cadillac is Audi that sells its models for comparable prices as Mercedes and BMW but moves fewer A6 models compared to the competition. Up next is Infiniti that charges around 45,000 on average followed closely by Lexus that loses ground because of a significant amount of ES sales. Lincoln is able to average a little over 40,000 thanks to Town Car and Navigator sales. Right around the 40,000 dollar cutoff Acura suffers by not having a true flagship sedan or having a coupe or convertible version of the TSX. Opening up the premium category Volvo lacks serious firepower without a V8 in its lineup. Second to last Buick is a great example of selling vehicles at a premium but not luxury prices. Bringing up the rear is Chrysler with a majority of its sales comprised by the 200 and the Town&Country minivan.

*The data represented below is an attempt to find out the average selling prices of the luxury brands based on their product mix. The figures are averaged based on sales, thus a brand selling more flagship sedans versus entry level models has a higher average price than a brand selling mostly entry level models. Because of lack of sales figures BMW's M lineup and Mercedes's AMG models were not factored in, thus those brands likely have slightly higher transaction prices than indicated here.