On Automotive Spy Photos

Recently, I had my year anniversary at Campbell-Ewald. And for the last year, the majority of my work has been on the Chevrolet account.

Now, many people either see the Chevy account as the kiss of death, or see it as the way to make your career. I'm probably somewhere in the middle. On the plus side you get to work on an automotive account, which for a car geek like me is absolute heaven. And, on the negative side, you get to work on an automotive account, which is stressful, difficult and puts you under constant scrutiny. I enjoy the stress of working on Chevy. I believe it forced me to be a decent marketer as fast as humanly possible. And it strengthened my journalistic, research and web skills ten fold.

I now scour RSS feeds more often than I did when I was an investigative reporter, and am constantly tapping industry sources for other info. I now go directly to the consumer to figure out my audience and think we're producing stronger stories and advertising as a result.

But what I haven't figured out yet is to cater to the spy crowd. How do I leverage the Jalopniks and the AutoBlogs of the world? I know I get excited about spy photos... how do I capture that sort of enthusiasm for Chevy vehicles. That would be the theoretical golden ticket.

The audience is a powerful one... and they can be harnessed, but the big question is, how do I get around the legal ramifications of showing pre-production vehicles masked off without upsetting the balance.