kixo

Umm, what is Acura Corporate Marketing thinking? A few weeks ago, I ordered 2011 TSX and TL brochures from acura.com.

Well they arrived in the mail...and they are weird and unwieldy.

You get a brochure that is filled the Acura technology features and it's quite nice: high gloss, die cut, saddle-stitched with embedded mobile tags. But no details about any specific vehicle.

Ahh wait...Peeking out of inside back cover is a brochure for the model line, e.g., the TL. It's actually a fold-out poster, more like something you'd get at a Justin Bieber concert (Not that I have ever been to one, I'm just sayin'.) Lots of color and flash and suitable for wall hanging, but very little content.

Actually, the content (vehicle specs, dims, etc.) is crowded into one single column on one half of a page. The rest is in 4-point type (I kid you not) reading like a legal disclaimer.

On yet a separate card are the color chips for the interior and exterior.

Is this a preliminary brochure, and a more complete one will be available later, or at the dealer?

If this is the real and only thing, then I am not sure this is the way to sell a $44k car. It was obvious last year when Acura combined the TL and TSX brochures into one to save money. But the 2011 versions look unbecoming for near-luxury automobiles.

Oh, and Acura, please come up with a better way to tell us which colorways are available with which trimlines and transmissions. The use of all these dingbats and asteriks is confusing and cheapy-looking. Even the dealer can't figure it out.

Okay, stumbling off my pedestal...

Colin

At first I was pleased to see new brochures. I like the overall idea, but if you don't have a smart phone, it would be difficult to access the video clips. Also, there are no instructions for non-smart phone owners on how to get to the videos in a regular browser. One of the sales guys who owns an early Android, cannot even figure out how to install the MS tag app on his phone. (I know this is really sad). Finally, from a dealer perspective, why are they sending us packaged brochures? Why not send the exterior shells in bulk, and then the inserts separately? Anyway, I appreciate the attempt to use new media and hopefully this is version 1.0 and they'll refine things in future versions.