This Valentine’s Day, on 14th Feb 2021, Tata Altroz has invited Maruti Baleno and Hyundai i20 on a CRASHDATE
Tata Motors has engaged in what may be an attempt at humour for the in-house team. Sadly, it’s far from it. The potshots are as naive as the ones little kids may deem as a smart comeback, and everyone else plays along viewing it as harmless banter. In truth, they’re humourless.
BaeLeno JayLeno
In this instance, Baleno is called Bae-Leno. The term ‘bae’s popularity had heightened at one time, and has already fallen out of favour. Who knows if Bae-Leno is supposed to sound like Jay Leno. The Hi-20 of course would be reference to i20. And, which age group views rhyming words as humour?
Once the naming is dealt with, Tata Motors moves onto goading fans to ‘Comment/Tweet, “Hey @rival, it’s time you went on a #CrashDate with Altroz” on their social platforms and tag us’. Designed as a social media campaign, it’s hardly social this campaign.
And what on earth is a crashdate? The compound word isn’t real, and lacks clarity. Does it imply a date when one crashes a car seeing that all parties mentioned are in the car business. Is one supposed to in real crash a date? That’s plain rude. Or is it a reference to Tata Altroz’ crash test rating. The latter seems most likely.
Altroz 5 Star Rating
Tata has been taking on segment leaders on social media for a while. Given their history of trolling other brands on account of safety ratings from GNCAP, the crash date reference may not be all that ambiguous.
Sales for January 2020, sees Tata Altroz trail Maruti Baleno and Hyundai i20. Tata Altroz sales was at about 40 percent of the number of Baleno units sold. Last month, Tata Motors announced it had sold over 50k Altroz units. At the time, the company launched the iTurbo variant.
The remainder of the messaging reads as follows, ‘Hello Cupids. Altroz loves his rivals, like Hi20 & Bae-Leno, and others… So, this V-Day, we want you to send our message of love to them. Global NCAP you want to host this #CrashDate? Let’s put this love to the test.’
The gist – social media users have been asked to comment/tweet the company worded text on social platforms of other manufacturers, and tag Tata Motors. As with all social media campaigns, the dust will settle once the day ends.
