When Facebook Fans Turn Ugly: ExaminingThe Honda Accord Crosstour Page

Posted by Nick O'Neillon September 4th, 2009 12:16 PM7 Comments » There’s been some buzz among car enthusiasts over the pastcouple days surrounding anew Facebook Page that was launched by Honda to promote their soon to be released Accord Crosstour.The company expected to be embraced lovingly by fans butinstead the crowd turned ugly. Numerous comments were posted by users, stating how ugly the car was and that they’d never buyit.Eddie Okubo of Honda then posted a comment to the pagestating that he loved the new car design without disclaiming that he works for the company. Honda eventually removed thecomment from Eddie, but not before the damage was done andone of the largest auto blogs had covered it. Today, thecompanyhas posted the following response on the Facebook Page:Hi, Facebook fans. We’re listening, and we want to address a fewthings you’ve been talking about over the past few days.1.The photos: Arguably, the two studio photos we posted didn’t give you enough detail, nor werethey the best to showcase the vehicle. There are more photos on the way. Maybeit’s like a bad yearbook photo or something, and we think the new photos willclear things up.

It’s not the European wagon: We’ve seen a lot of comments about the desire for awagon, but this is neither a wagon nor designed for wagon buyers. We think theEuro wagon is a cool vehicle, too, and we appreciate the feedback… but a versionof that wasn’t our intention here. That’s another segment worthy of our consideration, but the Accord Crosstour, built on the larger, Accord platform, ismeant to give you the best of two worlds – the versatility of an SUV with thesportiness of a car.3.Many of you don’t like the styling: It may not be for everyone. Our researchsuggests that the styling does test well among people shopping for a crossover.

You want further details about the Accord Crosstour: We typically can’t give youdetails so far out from when the vehicle goes on sale for a number of reasons,including competitive intelligence and pure availability. However… we hear your frustrations, and while specs on the vehicle aren’t finalized, we’re trying to getsome stuff together that we hope will satiate some of your curiosity and give youmore to think about.5.Honda associates participating in the wall comments: We didn’t removecomments out of embarrassment. We removed comments that were posted