how does an electric car compare mpg when it uses no gallons?

the harvard business review recently praised nissan’s latest ad for the leaf, their all-electric car.  until now, nissan’s marketing hadn’t been able to effectively appeal to the same part of the male brain that most car ads target.  what guy is going to brag about driving a car named “leaf” in a bar?  experts suggested that the leaf should be positioned in a more exciting way: as the first electric car for the masses.  i remember hearing this touted in their commercials, but the below graphic ad really hits it out of the park.

the hbr blogger, andrew winston, complains that the traditional mpg metric system isn’t intuitive.  the government has a hard time including electric cars into their rating system.

nissan brilliantly gets to the point all consumers are thinking and essentially eliminated a step in calculation–what does it mean in terms of dollars?  the graphic shows how many miles each car can get per dollar spent.  25 miles to a dollar?  that’s pretty impressive.

how apple broke the pr rules–and got away with it

i saw an interesting post today from the harvard business review called “how apple broke the pr rules–and got away it” by joshua gans.  he basically discusses how apple broke 5 “key” pr rules after the fiasco of the iphone 4 release.  when it was released, apple was faced with a crisis over dropped signal strength if the device was held a certain way.  by breaking these crisis communication rules, apple actually benefited and saved its brand and reputation.

i won’t post the entire article, if you’re interested in learning more, just check it out at hbr. but i will list the 5 rules broken by apple:

1. apologize & take full responsibility
2. don’t create expectations with a media event
3. announce the giveaway first
4. avoid specific comparisons with competitors
5. don’t air your industry’s dark secrets

reading this made me wonder how toyota would have fared if it had responded the way apple did after the recalls.