Fiat Chrysler is hoping to take advantage of the incredible hype surrounding the newest installment of the Star Wars franchise with co-branded ads.
Fiat Chrysler is hoping it can use the force to ride the expected wave of interest in the new Star Wars film, “The Force Awakens.”
The Detroit automaker is launching a global promotional campaign that will include seven co-branded television spots for the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Fiat brands here in the U.S.
While you won’t see Han Solo trading his Millennium Falcon for a Viper, or one of the Stormtrooper clones blasting into battle in a Fiat 500, FCA marketing chief Olivier Francois thinks the automaker has a lot to gain from a tie-in with what will soon become “the most culturally relevant thing in the world.”
That could be an understatement considering the Disney/Lucasfilms release has already set an all-time record for pre-release ticket sales. And it’s likely also to set a record for the number of cross-marketing tie-ins. There are Adidas sneakers, Cover Girl make-up, Verizon, Hewlett Packard, Subway, even a special version of Kraft mac-n-cheese with pasta pieces shaped like Star Wars characters.
You won’t be able to avoid the cross-promotion campaign – unless you have a way to get to a galaxy far, far away. The studio recently staged an event along the Great Wall of China featuring 500 Stormtrooper replicas.
FCA is hoping the "force" of its new ad campaign tied to the new Star Wars movie will boost sales.
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Overkill, perhaps, but FCA is confident the tie-in will help maintain a steady stream of monthly sales increases and, perhaps more importantly, help it connect with a generation of new buyers who don’t necessarily think of the carmaker’s products as having much of a “cool” factor.
“Collaborating with Disney and Lucasfilm on ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ once again provides the opportunity to deliver the unexpected,” said Francois, “relevant, entertaining and immediately noticed end-of-the-year Tier 2 commercials true to the individuality of each of our brands and featuring the Star Wars music and sound design known around the world.”
Fiat Chrysler is looking to reach a broad audience with the campaign – no surprise considering Baby Boomers first experienced Star Wars just as they were starting to buy new cars in large numbers. Gen-Xers and Millennials grew up with Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Obe Wan Kenobe as familiar figures.
The seven spots will run on professional and college football broadcasts, and other programs running just about anywhere the carmaker could buy airtime. It will augment the TV effort with radio and social media campaigns. And it will have a specially themed vehicle on hand outside the Los Angeles theater where “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” makes it global debut this month.
Fiat Chrysler is rolling out seven television ads tied to the new Star Wars moving coming out this month.
Automakers routinely try to tie up with films they expect to draw potential buyers into theaters. Many manufacturers operate offices in Hollywood to line-up cross-marketing campaigns and to provide vehicles to filmmakers when they think an appearance will play well for the brand.
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Among recent partnerships, the Dodge brand landed a place in the popular “Furious 7,” as well as “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay 2,” where it shared screen time with sibling Ram products.
Few are surprised to see FCA enter the partnership with Disney. While no hard numbers have been released, it’s expected the tie-in runs well into the millions just for the rights to use the Star Wars name and characters, with the bill for commercial production and broadcast time expected to push into the eight-figure range, according to well-placed sources in the advertising industry.
But FCA’s Francois is not shy about spending big dollars on his own blockbuster marketing efforts. He was the one to conceive the original two-minute “Made in Detroit” commercial, with rapper Eminem, that ran on the 2011 Super Bowl. It served as a formal declaration that the Chrysler side of the company had survived its bruising bankruptcy.
And it helped kicked off what is now nearly six years of consecutive monthly sales increases for FCA in the U.S.
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Tying in with Star Wars, Francois is betting, will provide the “Force” that potential buyers will find hard to resist.