As you've probably already read everywhere, GM gave away $7 million dollars worth of Pontiac G6's on the Oprah Winfrey show this week.
From MSN:
Oprah Winfrey celebrated the premiere of her 19th season by surprising each of her 276 audience members with a new car.
From Red Herring:
MediaPost's Wayne Friedman believes GM didn't get its full value for the stunt, because Oprah's audience isn't the target audience for the G6 and, compared to buying 30-second spots, would have been better spent on 100 ads during the show instead of 10 minutes during the show. Au contraire, mon ami, Oprah is all about the love and this argument presumes that the event began and ended with the giveaway on television.
Judgment call: GM got the deal of the week, with Oprah's brand on a car that looks destined for the same ignominious fate as the Fiero, to be a kind of sports coupe for people who don't want a sports car.
The question is...Did GM pull off the marketing coup of the year or did they just burn $7M in less than one day?
We would love to hear your opinion on the subject.