New Red Driving Instructor TV Ad

I was watching TV yesterday, when I noticed that red driving school was now airing a new marketing advert for its driving instructor training services.

Anyone based in the UK will know that since the economic recession started in the late 2007, that Red having making some brisk business cashing in on those who suddenly found themselves redundant, and needed a new job and source of income, one of the reasons why the TV advert was so successful was the promise of the ability to be self-employed, choose your own working hours and earn up to £30,000 a year. This sounded like something that a lot of TV watchers could do especially since the only required skills was the ability to drive and have held a full UK licence for 3 years!

To cut a long story short, after about 2 good years of success getting over £3000 from 10s of thousands potential driving instructors (PDI), people began to see that the TV ads were not telling the whole true story. Qualifying to become an instructor was not as easy as they had marketed, it also took longer than people were told, and not everyone made the grade just because they knew how to drive. One of the other main problems were that people were taking out loans to fund the training, and while these finance options were interest free within the first year (career development loans), they had a hefty APR if not paid off within the interest free period.
A lot of trainee instructors were not qualifying within 12months and thus had to start making repayments something they had never thought of before.
Finally with a lot of media attention, and internet lobbying, the red driving school bubble burst in Feb 2010 when LVG ltd went into administration.

A week later Red driving schoo was back having been bought by a private equity company, a new media marketing agency was appointed, and this resulted in the new Red driving school TV advert.

I am closely monitoring the progress of the new company driving results ltd to see if the same business model is what they hope to continue to forge ahead with, as the UK public is a lot more aware of the truths about becoming a driving instructor.