At the start of her 19th season Oprah gave everyone in her audience a brand new Pontiac G-6 worth $28,400. Pontiac also agreed to pay all of the sales tax on each car. Everyone in the audience was chosen because someone they knew had written in to tell of how bad their cars were and why they deserved a new one.http://money.cnn.com/2004/09/13/news/newsmakers/oprah/
Website searches for Pontiac increased by 1000% the day of the show which led to Pontiac having a waitlist of over 300 people in one day. This gave Pontiac estimated sales of over 8 million dollars. This was the biggest single-day waitlist in Pontiac's history according to GM.
Once again, with a few words, Oprah helped a company make more money in a day then they usually make in a few months. The G6 model went from a relatively unknown make of Pontiac to one of their best sellers that year.
Disclaimer: The opinions or statements expressed here are my own and should not be taken as a position, opinion, or endorsement of Sinclair Community College.
Good job Oprah! Maybe she can come to Dayton, Ohio and talk about what a great place to start a business it is ;).
ReplyDeleteI had watched this episode but I had no clue that it helped the pontiac sales the way it did. Sure I would have expected it to be impacted slightly but to have to go on a waitlist is astronomical. And, I agree with Monica, maybe Oprah could come to Dayton and help out our auto manufacturers, we could use that in this region.
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty crazy how Oprah can choose a specific model of something and have it sell like that. There's got to be something about human psychology to be said here. I'm glad she uses it for good.
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