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up vote 8 down vote favorite

Sometimes hyphenated, sometimes not. Most commonly heard in car commercials, eg "Introducing the all-new 2010 Cadillac SRX Crossover". I've only heard it since moving to the US so perhaps it is a North American thing.

Does the "all" actually convey any specific meaning? Am I losing anything by interpreting "the all-new 2010 model" as "the 2010 model"?

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4 Answers

up vote 9 down vote

The phrase "all-new" in advertising simply emphasizes that the product is completely new. It is not simply a new name or small iteration from the previous model — everything about it is new, so it must really be worth buying!

(Naturally, in the world of advertising, what they say is prone to extreme exaggeration!)

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5  
Of course, it's unlikely that the "all-new 2010 model" was really redesigned from scratch. "Hmm, I wonder how many wheels this car should have. And should they be round or oval?" Strictly speaking, you should stay far away from a truly all-new 2010 Cadillac SRX Crossover. :) – Marthaª Nov 23 '10 at 21:01
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@Rhodri: On the contrary, it does mean that at least something about the product is new; it is just that the extent is exaggerated. You wouldn't see "all-new" used for last year's model, even with advertising. – Kosmonaut Nov 24 '10 at 15:54
up vote 7 down vote

There is a unique phenomenon that occurs in the auto industry. Any particular model (e.g. a Toyota Camry) undergoes significant redesign every five to ten years. In other years, the changes from one model year to the next are very small.

Frequently when a car model is described as "all-new", that is referring to a major engineering refresh/redesign, as opposed to minor year-to-year changes.

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+1 on this. My one qualm is that, while "all-new" is generally meant to imply that the car's redesign just happened, there's nothing stopping them from just saying it to mean "this is our new model year. None of the parts are used". So without going and looking in car magazines, you don't really know. – T.E.D. Sep 13 '11 at 14:47
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...as a practical note, these are actually the models to stay away from. Reliability on the first year of a redesign tends to be sub-par. Wait a year for them to work the kinks out. – T.E.D. Sep 13 '11 at 14:51
up vote 5 down vote

Yes, "all-new" does convey a specific meaning, and the specific meaning is: "we want you to buy one and will say anything to try to convince you to do so."

I respectfully disagree with Kosmonaut to the extent that I believe "all-new" doesn't really mean the car is totally redone. It may not even mean it is mostly redone. It may only mean they have put a new name on an old product, with possibly a few cosmetic changes. Really, advertising-speak is such an ocean of waffle-words that you can't take anything from it to reliably mean anything at all. And I say that as someone who wrote advertising copy before I found a better life. The art of writing such copy is to make the reader think the words mean much more than they do.

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+1. Even @res overstates the marketing meaning of "all new". If res would remove the word "major" from "major engineering...", I think that would capture the usage much better. As you state, it just a marketing attempt to get you to purchase the product. – Les Nov 6 '12 at 13:54
up vote 1 down vote

I think Robusto is really onto the nub here. "All-new" is virtually meaningless. The description is attached to any product as a way of garnering attention. Consumers are known to prefer things that are new. New things are exciting. Old things are boring. You already have old things, so why would you want to buy another old thing? If something is new, it is appealing. That's why advertisers use the expression "all new".

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