I’m the proud owner of a new Chevy Volt, and I’m thinking of ordering a license plate that says Shocked.

You see, I thought I’d buy a Nissan Leaf.

After multiple visits to the Leaf website, reading reviews and watching videos of the owner experience, their marketing connected with me. I decided the quirky all electric vehicle might be just the car to finally free me from the shackles of the gas pump.

So, I went to a local Nissan dealer and took one for a spin. It drove well, and decided I’d find out if they’d honor Nissan’s lease deal. That’s when the fun began.

In the classic ‘good cop’ ‘bad cop’ game, the first salesperson went to his manager, and then returned with a quote that was $190/month higher than the advertised price–per month. When I pushed back, he brought out his Sales Manager, but really, let’s call him “Salesperson 2″ since that’s what he’s there to do.

After I got past his fake smile and insincere attempt to become my son’s best friend, I asked why they wouldn’t honor the deal advertised on the Nissan website.

He claimed the car Nissan was promoting was a 2011.
Nope. It was a 2012.

Then he said it was a lower end model.
Nope. I was sure it was he top model.

Then he said he didn’t know what our credit rating was.
I responded it’s perfect and even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t increase the payment $190/month.

We went back and forth for awhile, and finally he said, “Listen, we aren’t Nissan – we’re a franchise.”
I asked does that mean they won’t honor Nissan’s deal – yes or no? He said, “it’s supply and demand – we deserve a profit.”

Of course, they deserve a profit. But when I asked the Sales Manager from another Nissan dealer if they’d honor the lease deal, he said, “Of course. Won’t everybody?”

This was the slimiest experience I’ve ever had buying a car, and it opened the door for the Chevy Volt — a fantastic vehicle, but more expensive than the Leaf.

We drove it. Loved it. And bought it the next day.

The sales process was seamless. The sales people were fair and after 30 years of owning pretty much nothing but Hondas, Toyotas, BMWs, Mercedes and a Lexus — we bought a new Chevy.

So, I’m shocked.

I’m just a little shocked (and a lot happy) that I bought a new Volt.

But I’m even more shocked that Nissan will tolerate this type of type of sales nonsense. They invested millions to get buyers like me interested in their product, then stumbled mightily at the finish line. Since they won’t enforce the pricing on their website, would you consider this deceptive marketing? Bait and switch?

I’m not sure, but one thing is clear: Nissan needs to consider the customer experience and all their contact points from A-Z. Not A-Y.

What do you think?

Related: The door to door salesperson from hell

I just contacted a company because a coupon code they emailed me didn’t work.

As it turns out, it expired in their time zone, not mine, so I missed a discount of about $10 by about 10 minutes.

Sure, I could have been an ass about the fact they didn’t state the timezone on their coupon, but it was only $10.

But customer delight drives word of mouth, and had they bent the rules by 10 minutes and honored it, this would have been a different post — and I would have surely shared the name of the company with you.

I’ve been a non-friction customer for at least eight years and have spent thousands there. What a shame my business wasn’t worth $10 to them the first time they actually had to provide this customer with a little customer service.

What a shame, indeed.

How do you think they should have handled my inquiry?

We thought we’d peek under the covers of their website to see if we could discover who coded the site, and look at what we found:

If you’ve never fiddled with HTML, this won’t mean much to you. But if you have, you might have just said “awesome” under your breath the way we did.

“It’s all about Jesus” is one of their key messages, and whether you’re Jesus follower or not, take this away:

There’s always room for creativity – anywhere. Everywhere.

And when you reward people for paying attention, they’ll appreciate you even more.

There are plenty of things we don’t like: Racism. Bigotry. Violence. Corporate greed run amok. Comic sans.

But boring marketing is irresponsible, and boring Dollar Shave Club is not.

This is f**king brilliant.

The video has gone viral, leaving some to say it has changed the face of college recruitment advertising.

So, do you think they’ve nailed it for their target audience, or have they gone too far?

Comment below to weigh in.

I really like LinkedIn, but as a person concerned about privacy and social networks, I believe that I have to point out a change to you.

Without attracting too much publicity, LinkedIn has updated their privacy conditions and has now granted itself permission to use YOUR NAME AND PICTURE in any of their advertisements. Yes: Your name + your picture = A LinkedIn ad.

Some simple actions to be considered by you:

1. Place the cursor on your name at the top right corner of the screen. From the small
pull down menu that appears, select “Settings”

2. Then click “Account” on the left side of the bottom of the screen

3. In the column next to Account, select the option “Manage Social Advertising”

4. Finally uncheck the box “LinkedIn may use my name and photo in social advertising” and hit “Save.”

5. Then select the option “Manage Partner Advertising,” uncheck that box as well and hit “Save.”

Looking for a way to inform your connections? Simple: Via Inbox>Compose message in Linkedin, you can send a message to 50 connections at once.

I took a look, and I was opted in:

I dig LinkedIn, but LinkedIn should communicate with its users and let them know they can opt-out. It’s the responsible thing to do.

Oh, if you want to opt out of Facebook’s social advertising, click here.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

Now, a 10 second trailer featuring Matthew Broderick has the internets abuzz wondering if a Ferris Bueller’s Day Off sequel in the works.

With over four million views in three days, the video has gone viral. Rumor has it there’s no sequel, but instead it’s teasing an ad for the new Honda CR-V. Some enraged Ferris fans are dropping f-bombs, threatening to key Hondas, and shouting “SAVE FERRIS” with all caps on.

This is a small vocal minority. I loved the movie. Saw it at least three times and can quote as many FBDO lines as anyone.

This is a tempest in a teakettle. And for all the Honda haters out there–this ad will help a whole new generation of fans will learn to appreciate “one man’s struggle to take it easy.”

That’s my take. What’s yours?

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Update: The rumors are true. Here’s the new ad:

Check out a great conversation we’re having about Denny’s Maple Bacon Sundae, and feel free to join us as we discuss where commerce and conscience collide and/or come together.

A  few highlights:

• Most active day for sharing: Wednesdays
• Most active time of day: 9:30 A.M. EST
• Most users click within the first two minutes
• 75% of clicks happen within the first day

Interestingly, most shares are happening via good ol’ cut and paste. Who’d a thunk it?

via Mashable

Inappropriately suggestive is funny when it makes sense, and is relevant to the product.

But this is Tums antacid they’re selling, not condoms or 4-hour-erection Cialis. The production values for the spots are top notch, so Grey (Worldwide) obviously spent some bucks making them. But what does phallic food and orally fixated grandmas have to do with heartburn?

Eew.

In my opinion, these spots are not funny, but creepy — and not in a good way.

What the heck was Grey thinking in creating these spots? And more importantly, how could their client, Tums/GlaxoSmithKline, have approved them? What went wrong in the process for ads like these to get made? Or could the client possibly be that naïve and blind?

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Thanks to Tan Le for this guest post. Find Tan on Facebook.