There isn't much that Ray D'Arcy's fans don't know about him. It may not even have escaped their attention that "Ray is a long-term supporter of Volkswagen", as the German car manufacturer delighted in saying as it announced its 18-month sponsorship of his new RTÉ show.
When you're a non-driver, all conversations related to specific models and makes of cars are mentally blocked out, leaving only radio silence. Why does the nice man's voice keep cutting out? Oh, that's just your brain using its "Top Gear censor" to protect itself from a full shutdown.
Assurances have been received, nonetheless, that D'Arcy has driven a Volkswagen Golf or two in his time, and that this wasn't a mere commercial platitude. He is a long-term supporter of Volkswagen. The last four months of his tenure at Today FM were, however, sponsored by another company: Volkswagen's arch-rival Toyota.
In September 2014, Toyota Ireland signed a 16-month deal to slap its brand all over D'Arcy's mid-morning show, only for the presenter to make a hasty exit from Communicorp a few months later. As D'Arcy clambered out the sun roof and leapt on to the passing RTÉ lorry, Toyota was left endorsing a vehicle with nobody behind the wheel. And it isn't even a big backer of driverless cars.
Happily, once Today FM promoted Anton Savage to the 9am-noon slot, Toyota renegotiated the deal. It's still paying a "substantial sum", but it won "a preferential reduction as the most recent sponsor of The Ray D'Arcy Show" (meaning the old one).
Like all sponsorships, the unexpected new arrangement is billed as "a great fit", as Savage is a "well-known aficionado of motoring". Indeed, a few years ago he told the Irish Examiner that his guilty pleasure was "doing bold things on motorcycles".
In the meantime, however, Volkswagen had got its clutches on D'Arcy's afternoon show on Radio 1 for an amount that RTÉ chairwoman Moya Doherty says "more than covers" his salary.
Because the JNLR radio ratings survey is more of a slow crawl than a drag race, it will be months before we find out which presenter has been the best bang for the buck. The world of car sales statistics moves faster. When Radio 1 referred to Volkswagen as “Ireland’s number one car brand” a fortnight ago and Today FM called Toyota “Ireland’s most popular car brand” just this week, both statements were true at the time of writing.
What happened between press releases was the publication of industry figures for January, and they showed that Toyota, with 3,866 new car registrations for the month, had knocked Volkswagen (3,129 registrations) off the top spot.
Toyota uses the recall-what-recall slogan “best built cars in the world” in its advertising, which its rivals naturally dispute, while last year Volkswagen, the Irish sales leader for 2014, also objected to the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland (ASAI) about a Toyota television ad that claimed its cars have the best resale value.
The Javelin Group-created ad in question featured a Toyota Hilux rolling off a cliff into the sea and eventually washing up on a beach, at which point the owner lets the water gush out the driver’s door and simply zooms off in it.
It was entertaining in that hyperbolic car ad way, but it wasn’t as amusing as this Toyota-baiting radio spot created by Volkswagen’s advertising agency Owens DDB: “See you’re back in your ’08 Golf,” the man says. “Yep,” replies the woman. “What happened to that brand new Auris you were driving?” he asks. The woman cries. “Wow, okay, what, what’s wrong?” says the man. “That Auris, it just wasn’t a Golf,” she replies, still crying. “Well, I did try to tell you.”
The voiceover then begins: “We all make mistakes, but investing in a Volkswagen will never be one of them...”
Toyota was not laughing, and the ASAI, agreeing that the ad was in breach of its codes, upheld its complaint.
Volkswagen’s defence was: “They started it.” The crying woman was deployed in response to an earlier Toyota spot that made “an unfair attack” on the 2008 Golf by referring to it as “the deposit” for a nice Auris. The ASAI didn’t mind that one.
So far, then, this local iteration of a global rivalry seems more a case of bumper cars than road rage. But with any luck, both brands will be revving up their engines for the next instalment. As for D’Arcy’s thoughts on cars, listeners may have to wait. His first show on his return to RTÉ was mostly about atheism and soup.
