Ryan
The Plan: Market the Renault by drawing on its similarities to pears, since they’re kind of the same shape
The Story: Deciding that likening an ugly car to an ugly fruit was a good idea, French automaker Renault tried to launch a campaign that compared the Renault 14 to a pear. The fact that “poire,” in French, can mean both pear and gullible was apparently lost completely on the manufacturers, as was the fact that no one really wants a car that looks like a pear, basically meaning it’s a short, fat ass automobile and is the vehicular equivalent of taking a ride on that little psychic lady from the Poltergeist movies. On top of this, the car had an issue with body corrosion, leading people to start calling it “the rotten pear,” as “worthless crap” was not entirely media friendly and didn’t really include a pun.
