Miami New Times: Gotham Magazine

VW's guests rose early at the Regent's penthouse suites and made the arduous jet trip to Key West to meet the Eos

March 22, 2007

….Last June Volkswagen hired the public relations firm MWW Group to push its new "lifestyle" media campaign. Reasoning that most people don't know anything about cars anyway, the idea is to promote the idealized life the car invokes, rather than bother with the car itself. To that end, MWW invited ten journalists from ten publications to a two-night, $200,000-plus promotional orgy (roughly $20,000 per person, if you care to look at it that way). Among the media invited -- apparently because someone else dropped out at the last minute -- was New Times . Out of a cold, scientific curiosity to see such a specimen of publicity machinery at work, New Times dutifully accepted. Not one of the journalists invited was an automotive writer or car specialist; they were writers for major "lifestyle" magazines like Country Living , Self , and Gotham magazine. Before they so much as touched the Eos, invitees were treated to $180 spa treatments, dinner a la carte, an open bar, and $1300-a-night penthouse suites at the Regent South Beach hotel, complete with open-air hot tubs that faced Ocean Drive. Eos pamphlets were left unobtrusviely on the nightstand. In fact hardly anyone, including Eos reps, even mentioned the car. There was not a single slide show, not one presentation on the Eos. Instead, there was free stuff -- shitloads of it -- with a joy ride in the $40,000 convertible tucked casually in the middle.