Thread by @wordsbymt

I've been collecting my thoughts on the whole #Voltswagen omnishambles and I've come to some conclusions that surprised me.
And I'm surprised because, on balance, the blame lies more with business journalists than #Volkswagen.
Thread 1/

Where was #Volkswagen wrong?
Three points here stand out:
1. The timing of the release was stupid.
2. The second press release was an extremely bad idea.
3. Dieselgate was only five years ago and not everybody has moved on from being lied to the first time.
2/

But on the flipside, the journos pushing it were naive in the extreme.
Firstly, the timing was, without being unambiguously an April Fool's prank, close enough to April 1 to raise suspicions.
3/

VW US's media man, Mark Gillies, was caught in a bind between toeing the marketing-stunt line and not telling closed-loop lies.
Whatever else you think of Mark, he would not tell lies to direct questions.
4/

Anybody who wrote that this was happening must not have checked the trademark registrations, because it was the first thing I did, the first thing @GregKable did, and the first thing @Angus_MacK did.
That, and the domain registrations, told you everything you needed to know.
5/

There was also an incredible lack of understanding of both how much it would cost to change the name, even just for America, for the length of the benefit. In a post-2030 world where EVs are the norm, what would be the point?
6/

The journalists involved should, at the first opportunity, called Germany.
Or even read a book about Germany.
There is simply no way the Porsche/Piech clans who own most of the voting shares would approve any name change.
7/

So, if the PR people are being evasive to direct questions, there are no trademark registrations anywhere on earth, the brand history is too valued, the costs are too high, the benefits too temporary and the whole thing close to April 1, why weren't they more skeptical?
ends/