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American Morning

Minding Your Business: Car Talk

Aired October 15, 2003 - 08:47   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning back to Andy Serwer.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Wow! That's shocking.

O'BRIEN: We started by talking -- yes, it's shocking news, and, of course, we're going to elaborate for folks a little bit more.

SERWER: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's finish our conversation that was started on cars. Car ads don't work.

SERWER: Car talk. Yes, if you're an advertising executive for an auto company, please don't listen to this report, because we like auto ads here at CNN, and so do others. But they don't work so well apparently in terms of consumers.

OK, a quick quiz. "Like a rock." "Like a rock" is an advertisement...

O'BRIEN: Chevy.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Chevrolet.

SERWER: Thank you. A lot of people don't get that. I did a little...

HEMMER: Bob Seger.

O'BRIEN: How about "zoom, zoom, zoom?"

SERWER: Yes, I can't even -- that's VW, I think? I don't know. TV ads -- oh, Mazda? Thank you, Daniel. TV ads don't work so well. You can see here. What influences you most? This is a Cap Gemini (ph) study. Word of mouth, so important, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Wow!

SERWER: I mean, we just did a story in "Fortune" magazine on Mercedes, and they're having quality problems. And it really started with people complaining just sort of word of mouth, hey, man, Mercedes isn't doing so well. So, you can see how important that is.

I want to move on to this other story. I want to introduce a new phrase to you all this morning, "bait car." Bait car. I love this. The city of Vancouver in British Columbia has been rolling out a program. They had a problem with auto theft, and they noticed that certain cars were being stolen from certain areas, certain malls -- say, Hondas were being stolen from mall A, other cars being stolen from mall B.

So, what they did is they left cars in these malls, sometimes even running. They put video cameras in the cars. They put GPS systems in the cars. And there it is. Look at that mousetrap. See that? That's a bait car. And voila, enter the car thieves. They track them by helicopter. They find the people. Then they disabled the engine remotely, and they nail them.

Now, to me, this smacks of entrapment. If you put a Porshe Boxster with the engine running out front, I mean, I'm jumping in the thing, right?

HEMMER: Well, then you would be guilty.

SERWER: I mean, I'd be busted. You'd be busted.

HEMMER: Gotcha!

SERWER: Anyway, this thing is working great. It's been reducing auto theft by 16 percent in Vancouver. Minneapolis had it cut car theft by 40 percent. And, boy, that's a little tough.

O'BRIEN: I think as in everything, if it's too good to be true, if the Porsche is left running in the mall, in the back of the parking lot.

HEMMER: If you can drive a stick.

SERWER: It's a little fishy, it really is.

O'BRIEN: Probably shouldn't steal that one.

SERWER: Right.

O'BRIEN: Just some advice.

SERWER: Right.

HEMMER: Time for the markets or not?

SERWER: Yes, I want to do that very quickly, because it's a big day. The rally continued yesterday. The Dow was up 48 points. Again, just keep on moving here. Futures are up this morning. We are in the middle of earnings season.

Intel came aboard last night with good numbers. It's up. GM this morning is better than expectations. Today, we're going to be getting IBM, Harley-Davidson and Apple. So, a lot of stuff happening.

HEMMER: Got it.

O'BRIEN: We will wait and see. Andy Serwer, thanks.

SERWER: Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.







Aired October 15, 2003 - 08:47   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning back to Andy Serwer.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Wow! That's shocking.

O'BRIEN: We started by talking -- yes, it's shocking news, and, of course, we're going to elaborate for folks a little bit more.

SERWER: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's finish our conversation that was started on cars. Car ads don't work.

SERWER: Car talk. Yes, if you're an advertising executive for an auto company, please don't listen to this report, because we like auto ads here at CNN, and so do others. But they don't work so well apparently in terms of consumers.

OK, a quick quiz. "Like a rock." "Like a rock" is an advertisement...

O'BRIEN: Chevy.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Chevrolet.

SERWER: Thank you. A lot of people don't get that. I did a little...

HEMMER: Bob Seger.

O'BRIEN: How about "zoom, zoom, zoom?"

SERWER: Yes, I can't even -- that's VW, I think? I don't know. TV ads -- oh, Mazda? Thank you, Daniel. TV ads don't work so well. You can see here. What influences you most? This is a Cap Gemini (ph) study. Word of mouth, so important, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Wow!

SERWER: I mean, we just did a story in "Fortune" magazine on Mercedes, and they're having quality problems. And it really started with people complaining just sort of word of mouth, hey, man, Mercedes isn't doing so well. So, you can see how important that is.

I want to move on to this other story. I want to introduce a new phrase to you all this morning, "bait car." Bait car. I love this. The city of Vancouver in British Columbia has been rolling out a program. They had a problem with auto theft, and they noticed that certain cars were being stolen from certain areas, certain malls -- say, Hondas were being stolen from mall A, other cars being stolen from mall B.

So, what they did is they left cars in these malls, sometimes even running. They put video cameras in the cars. They put GPS systems in the cars. And there it is. Look at that mousetrap. See that? That's a bait car. And voila, enter the car thieves. They track them by helicopter. They find the people. Then they disabled the engine remotely, and they nail them.

Now, to me, this smacks of entrapment. If you put a Porshe Boxster with the engine running out front, I mean, I'm jumping in the thing, right?

HEMMER: Well, then you would be guilty.

SERWER: I mean, I'd be busted. You'd be busted.

HEMMER: Gotcha!

SERWER: Anyway, this thing is working great. It's been reducing auto theft by 16 percent in Vancouver. Minneapolis had it cut car theft by 40 percent. And, boy, that's a little tough.

O'BRIEN: I think as in everything, if it's too good to be true, if the Porsche is left running in the mall, in the back of the parking lot.

HEMMER: If you can drive a stick.

SERWER: It's a little fishy, it really is.

O'BRIEN: Probably shouldn't steal that one.

SERWER: Right.

O'BRIEN: Just some advice.

SERWER: Right.

HEMMER: Time for the markets or not?

SERWER: Yes, I want to do that very quickly, because it's a big day. The rally continued yesterday. The Dow was up 48 points. Again, just keep on moving here. Futures are up this morning. We are in the middle of earnings season.

Intel came aboard last night with good numbers. It's up. GM this morning is better than expectations. Today, we're going to be getting IBM, Harley-Davidson and Apple. So, a lot of stuff happening.

HEMMER: Got it.

O'BRIEN: We will wait and see. Andy Serwer, thanks.

SERWER: Thank you. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.