Chrysler Changes Ad Direction & Agencies
Over the years, Chrysler’s divisions have had some terrific ad campaigns and some that define the word horrible. There have been some great ads for bad cars and bad ads for good cars, along with the “why in the hell did they do that?” campaigns.
This ad tells a story of Chrysler products bringing home loved ones.
However, that is the ad business where everyone is a critic, especially dealers – who want instant results – and think good ads start and end with a big price reduction or rebates.
Now there is a new management team in Auburn Hills. They decided the best way to revitalize the moribund divisions was with a fresh new creative palates on which new advertising agencies could work their marketing legerdemain.
The first new campaign called “Coming Home” (why not going home?) — click here — is a lovingly photographed journey through Chrysler’s corporate history and America’s that appeared for the first time just eight days ago during a massive buy on football Bowl Games.
The kick-off ad is strategically good, and tactically very good. As the old year closes out and new is at hand reminiscences, memories and nostalgia help ease the pain of going into the unknown New Year. The production values, music and voice over are very well done in a genre that can be maudlin. The first ad at least was up-beat.
Chrysler hopes the new campaign reminds those millions of American’s who have owned, loved or liked its cars over the years that there’s an old company that is trying to reimage their reputation, hopefully with cars consumers will buy.
Time will tell
Quick question: Which Luxury Brand is doing the best job?
Every brand in the luxury category has been hit hard during the recession. Yes, there’s a multi-level, full court press among the traditional luxury brands — BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz – to be the premiere brand in the premiere category. Audi, still a footnote in the American Luxury league, has stepped into the foray and made significant inroads with unique programs that were detailed by Scott Keogh in a recent speech, the brand’s imaginative and innovative veep of marketing. For a brief clip click here.
Famed, but money guszzling, Brit brands of Jaguar and Land Rover have used Tata’s ownership and financial backing to introduce some very nice vehicles that could recapture the patina of success. Rolls-Royce is moving its new Ghost model into the market with some very good early sales results, given the economy. Bentley’s new models are striking a responsive cord with their buyers too.
The old American leaders in luxury cars – Cadillac and Lincoln – lost their prestige years ago and both are trying to resuscitate brand image. Caddy has its one trick pony, the CTS, the aging Escalade, a slick new SRV (that emulates, finally, the RX 300 et al) while Lincoln’s MK series have nice new dramatic designs, but underneath are lacking in genuine luxury bona fides. In both cases, bad memories are difficult to erase.
So the answer to the question raised above is: hard to tell until the sales numbers start to appear during the year.
Down the heritage trail
Here’s a link, click here, for a photographic display of some of the best looking classics I’ve ever seen.
Best non-auto website name is
YouDontKnowQuack.com. It is the new URL from the famous spokesduck company, Aflac, which, oddly, is looking for a new ad agency, but keeping the duck. Could this web name be changed to YouDontKnowCars.com for a domestic car brand?
Return of Pontiac’s Aztec?
Over the past few weeks I’ve seen more Aztec’s on the road than ever before. The clear winner of the ugly of the year award when first introduced, the Aztec seems to have garnered a bunch of loyal fans these days — and they appear to be in very good shape. On the used car market, the versions with the built-in camper are rare and relatively expensive.
Talk About Target Marketing
Seat’s Cupid Commercial currently running in Europe has received praise and pans for its new wave approach to love, click here, and make up your own mind.
The Car as a Sexual Object
Here’s an interesting comment from an email I received recently:
How is it that the country that made us all fall in love with the automobile has failed, with only a few exceptions, to produce a single family sedan with the style and humor and grace of the cars produced in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s?”
Put aside the question of whether those models were male (as in longer, lower and wider, Dr. Freud) or female (as in fender skirts, curvy belt lines and, of course, headlights and bumper bullets).
Either way, they all had sex appeal. (In Ireland in the ’70s, it was the E-Type Jag that made sense of puberty.) Today, however, we have the mundanity of our marriage to the minivan and the SU V and long-term relationships with mid-size cars that are, forgive me, a little heavy in the rear cargo hold.