For those who thought this would negatively effect Genesis.
Genesis Begins to Break Through
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Originally Posted by Car and Driver
Of course, no one would have anticipated that sponsoring a golf tournament would catapult Genesis' name into push notifications when a GV80 courtesy car driven by tournament host Tiger Woods crashed on a curvy stretch of road in southern California on February 23. Grisly crash photos and the fact that Woods escaped with serious but apparently not life-threatening injuries may have helped cement Genesis' focus on safety in customers' minds. In the two days after the crash, traffic to Car and Driver's GV80 page was up more than 850 percent versus the previous week.
Benson says GV80 sales skyrocketed in the week after Woods' accident, with some business from customers who were hearing about the brand for the first time. "We more than doubled our month in that last week" of February he says, which propelled Genesis of Bend to its best sales month ever. When we talked to him in mid-March, interest was still high.
Even before the GV80 was a factoid in a major news story, the fledgling brand's first utility vehicle was drawing customers into showrooms. The brand's biggest problem now may be that the GV80 is responsible for so much of the brand's current success. At Shawn Treadway's dealership, when customers come in for a GV80 but aren't willing to wait, they're more likely to shift to a Hyundai Palisade than another Genesis, the rest of which are sedans. Benson estimated that 90 percent of his customers were looking for a GV80, and even the availability of all-wheel drive doesn't tempt buyers in his snowy market to the brand's sedans. But if the launch this summer of the compact crossover GV70 goes as planned, the GV80 won't have to shoulder the burden alone for long.
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