“Smoke and Mirrors: How Turners Exploits Community Trust While Dodging Accountability” - 9 Spetember 2025

When corporate greed masquerades as Kiwi humour, someone's getting scammed - and it ain't the shareholders.

Kia ora, Ivor Jones here, your Māori Green Lantern coming to you from the whenua of my tīpuna.

The recent Advertising Standards Authority ruling against Turners over their "Tina from Turners" advertisements burning rubber isn't just about illegal burnouts or offensive language. It's a perfect window into how this company has built an empire by exploiting community trust, targeting vulnerable consumers, and weaponising "relatability" to mask predatory business practices that disproportionately harm our whānau and working-class communities.

Paywalled article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6s14q51p1cz6l3ecgg5f8/Media-Insider_-Tina-from-Turners-ad-Advertising-Standards-Authority-upholds-complaint-about-car-performing-burnout-NZ-He.PDF?rlkey=txhpuzusno3351wrwvxhmbx28&st=iilb2uvk&dl=0

The Tina Con: Manufacturing Authenticity to Hide Corporate Exploitation

Let me break down what's really happening here. Turners didn't accidentally stumble into controversy - they engineered it. The "Tina from Turners" campaign is a masterclass in neoliberal manipulation, using working-class imagery and "authentic Kiwi humour" to distract from the company's systematic exploitation of vulnerable consumers. When the ASA upheld complaints about their YouTube advertisement showing illegal burnouts, describing police looking for cars, and fat-shaming content, they revealed the true character behind the corporate mask.

This isn't comedy - it's psychological warfare designed to normalise antisocial behaviour while targeting communities already marginalised by economic inequality. The burnout imagery specifically appeals to young men from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, the exact demographic most likely to be trapped in Turners' predatory finance arrangements. By celebrating illegal street racing, they're grooming customers who lack the financial literacy to recognise exploitation when it's dressed up as mateship.

Car dealership employing predatory sales tactics targeting vulnerable consumers

The Numbers Tell the Real Story

The data exposes Turners' systematic expansion strategy built on consumer complaints and market manipulation. Between 2017 and 2018, complaints against motor vehicle dealers increased by 17 percent, with the Commerce Commission receiving 420 complaints specifically about car dealers. The majority involved misleading information about vehicles - exactly the kind of deceptive practices that enable companies like Turners to extract maximum profit from minimum-value transactions.

Consumer complaints by industry showing 17% increase in motor vehicle dealer complaints

Meanwhile, Turners has doubled their market share over the past decade, growing from 4.5 percent in 2013 to 9.5 percent in 2023. This expansion coincides directly with increasing consumer complaints and regulatory challenges in the used car market. When legitimate dealers struggle with compliance costs and ethical standards, predatory operators like Turners thrive by cutting corners and targeting desperate customers.

Turners Automotive Group market share growth from 4.5% to 9.5% over the past decade

The Māori Dimension: How Economic Inequality Fuels Predatory Practices

Here's where this gets particularly insidious from a Te Ao Māori perspective. Māori households have significantly lower wealth accumulation, with only 52 percent owning homes compared to 67 percent of non-Māori households. Government benefits constitute 33 percent of Māori household income versus just 9 percent for non-Māori families. This economic vulnerability makes our whānau prime targets for predatory car financing arrangements.

Economic disparities between Māori and Non-Māori across key indicators

When you can't access mainstream banking or lack the deposit for a reliable vehicle, you become dependent on dealers like Turners who offer "easy finance" with crushing interest rates and hidden fees. The company's own financial reports show finance attach rates of over 30 percent, meaning they're extracting additional profit from customers who are already financially vulnerable.

Economic inequality visible in car dealership interactions between Māori and Pākehā customers

This creates a vicious cycle where Māori families pay more for worse vehicles, increasing their transport costs while reducing their ability to build wealth. The "Tina" advertisements specifically target this demographic with working-class imagery and anti-authoritarian messaging that resonates with communities experiencing systemic disadvantage. It's not accidental - it's calculated exploitation masquerading as cultural authenticity.

Regulatory Capture and the Toothless Watchdog System

The ASA ruling reveals how New Zealand's self-regulatory advertising system protects corporate interests while providing the illusion of accountability. Despite finding that Turners promoted "dangerous, illegal or unsafe practice" through their burnout imagery, the consequence is merely a request to remove the advertisement. No financial penalties, no investigation into broader business practices, no protection for consumers who've already been exposed to the harmful messaging.

This regulatory theatre allows companies like Turners to test the boundaries of acceptable manipulation, knowing the worst outcome is a slap on the wrist and some free publicity. The ASA complaints process explicitly states they cannot resolve private disputes or investigate systemic business practices - exactly the areas where consumer harm is most severe.

Meanwhile, Turners continues facing legal challenges over their business relationships and auction practices, suggesting the advertising violations are symptoms of deeper corporate culture problems. The Motorworld case revealed how the company benefited from arrangements that systematically disadvantaged business partners, indicating a pattern of extractive relationships that extends beyond individual consumer transactions.

The Hidden Network: Corporate Power and Media Manipulation

What's particularly revealing is how Turners leverages media relationships to maintain their "loveable rogue" image despite mounting evidence of problematic practices. The original NZ Herald article about the ASA ruling was framed as entertainment rather than serious consumer protection journalism, complete with a reader poll asking whether people found the advertisement offensive.

This media framing transforms legitimate regulatory concerns into cultural war debates about "PC culture" versus "Kiwi humour," deflecting attention from the actual business practices that harm consumers. When Māori media representation research shows consistent patterns of negative stereotyping, companies like Turners can exploit these biases by positioning themselves as "authentic" alternatives to corporate political correctness.

Corporate executives celebrating profits while ignoring community harm and regulatory violations

The company's financial presentations to investors reveal a different narrative - sophisticated market analysis, regulatory arbitrage strategies, and expansion plans targeting areas with declining dealer competition. The "down-to-earth" marketing persona is pure theatre designed to obscure calculating corporate behaviour.

The Neoliberal Playbook: Individual Responsibility Versus Systemic Exploitation

Turners perfectly embodies neoliberal ideology by transferring risk and responsibility to individual consumers while concentrating profits through information asymmetries and market manipulation. Their business model depends on customers making "free market choices" without access to the information needed to make informed decisions.

When cars break down or finance arrangements become unaffordable, the neoliberal framework blames individual consumer choices rather than examining the structural conditions that create vulnerability to predatory practices. This ideological cover allows companies like Turners to extract wealth from communities while maintaining the fiction that market outcomes reflect personal responsibility rather than systemic exploitation.

The company's expansion strategy specifically targets areas with declining registered dealer numbers, creating local monopolies that reduce consumer choice while increasing dependence on their services. This market concentration allows them to maintain high prices and predatory terms because alternatives become scarce in affected communities.

Community Impact: When Corporate Profits Extract Community Wealth

The real harm from Turners' practices extends far beyond individual consumer transactions. When whānau are trapped in high-interest car finance arrangements, household resources that could support children's education, healthcare, or housing improvements instead flow to corporate shareholders. This wealth extraction perpetuates intergenerational disadvantage and undermines community resilience.

The company's own reports show they're converting wholesale auction sales to retail channels specifically because retail sales generate higher per-unit profits. This strategy systematically channels vehicles away from trade buyers who might offer competitive alternatives, creating artificial scarcity that inflates prices for individual consumers.

Their expansion into smaller regional centres particularly impacts rural Māori communities where transport costs are already high and alternative services are limited. When local dealers are driven out by corporate competition, communities become dependent on companies like Turners who can dictate terms without meaningful oversight or accountability.

The Māori Green Lantern Fighting Misinformation And Disinformation From The Far Right

The Path Forward: Reclaiming Community Control

Real change requires recognising that companies like Turners are symptoms of broader neoliberal capitalism that prioritises profit extraction over community wellbeing. Their advertising violations reveal corporate culture problems that won't be fixed by removing offensive advertisements while leaving predatory business practices intact.

We need comprehensive regulation that addresses information asymmetries, predatory lending practices, and market concentration in essential services like transport. The Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal provides some consumer protection, but individual dispute resolution cannot address systemic exploitation that targets entire communities.

From a tino rangatiratanga perspective, building community-controlled alternatives to predatory corporate services represents genuine sovereignty over economic relationships that affect our daily lives. Car-sharing cooperatives, community development finance institutions, and whānau-supported transport solutions can provide authentic alternatives to corporate manipulation disguised as consumer choice.

Holding Power to Account

The Turners case demonstrates how corporate power operates in contemporary Aotearoa - using cultural signifiers and manufactured authenticity to obscure extractive relationships that systematically disadvantage our most vulnerable communities. When companies can violate advertising standards while expanding market share and increasing profits, the regulatory system is working exactly as designed - to protect capital rather than communities.

But we're not powerless against corporate manipulation. Every time we refuse to be charmed by predatory marketing, support genuine community alternatives, and expose the reality behind corporate personas, we're building the foundation for economic relationships based on manaakitanga rather than exploitation.

The Māori Green Lantern sees through corporate smoke screens because our tīpuna taught us to recognise wolves in sheep's clothing. Turners can keep their Tina, keep their burnouts, and keep their manufactured authenticity. We know who they really are, and we're watching.

Nō reira, kia kaha, kia maia, kia manawanui.

Ivor Jones, Te Māori Green Lantern

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