Volvo has, since the ’70s all but owned “safety” in the automotive segment. Not a bad place to be…do you know anyone who’d prefer an unsafe car?
Brilliant work by Scali, McCabe, Sloves took Volvo from the choice of professors in tweed jackets to the boomer choice for family hauling. The Volvo wagon was a staple in the suburbs on both coasts. Volvo was even featured in the movie “Crazy People” where Dudley Moore played an ad man who decided that being honest was a good idea and suggested that Volvos were “Boxy but good:
While the brand became part of popular culture and owned safety, it has struggled with that one-dimensional view for years. Volvo has its loyalists who love the brand and it’s products but it also has more than its share of detractors for whom the truth of “boxy but good” was a real barrier to purchase. The challenge has always been how do you retain and nurture the safety reputation while also convincing a broader swath of the car buying population that the brand is cool and emotionally appealing. (more…)
We wouldn’t expect one of the buff books to have a comparo between the 2011 Corvette and the 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee but in marketing circles there’s an active discussion going on comparing their new advertising.
Chrysler’s new ad for the Jeep Grand Cherokee first appeared about a month ago and seeks to stir Americans’ pride in our heritage as builders and innovators:
Chevrolet’s new ad for Corvette appeared last week on the All-Star game and draws a parallel between our country’s space program and the 2011 Corvette:
Some critics have gone as far as saying that Chevrolet should not have aired the Corvette commercial because it was too similar to the Jeep spot. There are certainly similarities between the executions. (more…)
Curvin O’Rielly has been kind enough to allow us to publish this article on McNaughton Automotive Perspectives. For those of you who don’t know Curvin, he is one of the most respected copywriters in the advertising business. Among his automotive accomplishments was the creation of the Saturn brand with his colleagues at Hal Riney and Partners. As you will see, Curvin’s perspective on automobile advertising is both timely and timeless.
Everything “Old” Is “New” Again
By Curvin O’Rielly
In 1982, when I was a young creative director at BBDO in New York, I was asked to write an article about the automobile business for Magazine Age.
The article was well received. I even won an American Business Press award for it. The question is, has it stood the test of time?
Well, some of the details I included in the article are as dated as the wide ties we used to wear (the ones you’re saving, hoping they come back into style again), or the disco music we used to listen to (admit it; you boogeyed to disco), or the haul-ass iron we used to drive, the cars with more horsepower than their suspension systems and brakes could reasonably handle (unless they were well-engineered vehicles from Europe).
What’s still true about my article, unfortunately, is that the automobile industry is once again in deep trouble. This time, it’s poised at the abyss, owing in part to the economic tremors that came close to causing a complete meltdown. At the abyss, too, because it was smart (or so it prided itself) but then not smart enough. I mean, surely those at the wheel had to have seen all the danger signs on the road they were heading down, just as they had to have known they were racing toward a disaster of epic proportions.
That said, here are the observations I made 28 years ago, with some minor rewrites here and there.
An article in the April 2nd edition of the New York Times was headlined: “Despite Expansion, Mini Says It’s Still a Niche” and confirmed something that had occurred to me at the New York Auto Show.
In New York last week I saw the new Mini crossover, the Countryman, for the first time in person. All the Mini design cues are present in the Countryman and I think you’d be hard pressed to say that it wasn’t part of the Mini family. But I was struck by how “big” it seemed, it didn’t seem small and taut the way all the other models do. Part of the difference was that the Countryman’s ground clearance is higher, so its stance is really quite different than the other Minis.
This got me thinking, at what point does a marque go too far and begin to lose its essential character? Has Mini gone too far with the Countryman?
I suspect this is a little like losing your hair. Little by little your hair recedes, almost imperceptibly, you make little adjustments as you go, thinking no one will notice, until one day you end up with comb-over and people are snickering behind your back. Little by little automotive brands seem to lose their way. (more…)
The big news in automotive marketing this week was that Joel Ewanick is leaving Hyundai and going to head up marketing at Nissan. Hyundai won 2009 marketer of the year under Ewanick’s leadership and the company implemented the breakthrough Hyundai Assurance Program.
The Hyundai Assurance Program was a stroke of brilliance at a time when the economy and the auto industry were in a tailspin. It basically gave consumers a no risk way to purchase a vehicle. If you bought a Hyundai and subsequently lost your job, you could return the car, no questions asked. Truly brilliant and it propelled Hyundai through the recession and out the other end. Hyundai’s 2009 sales grew 8% and its share of market was up 1.1 points. This performance earned it elite status as one of only three automobile brands (Kia & Subaru were the others) to increase volume in 2009, while the industry overall declined 21%*.
The Hyundai Assurance Program was an unqualified success in a tough marketing climate. But now what? (more…)
Who should be embarrassed? The auto industry and their communications agencies.
If you haven’t had a chance to see the documentary “Art & Copy,” you must. Last night I saw it for the second time and enjoyed every minute. If you have worked in the advertising business or are responsible for advertising on the client side it is well worth seeing.
It’s a chance to see some of the most talented people in the agency business talk about what makes great communications. Hal Riney, Mary Lawrence, Jim Durfee, Lee Clow, George Lois, Jeff Goodby, Rich Silverstein, Dan Wieden and others talk about what they think represents great work and what inspires it. They talk about great ideas: Braniff’s End of the plain plane, Apple’s 1984 and Think Different, Got Milk, Reagan’s re-election campaign, Nike’s Just Do It and VW’s Think Small among others.
At the end, these people and the work leave you inspired. You’re reminded that at its best, advertising can change opinion, entertain, move people emotionally and to action. Great work respects people and treats them decently. Great work can build brands, companies and value. Great work is really hard to create, get approved and execute, but when it all comes together, it can move mountains.
Amid all the drama surrounding GM, every so often I see something that strikes me a smart. In Geneva, Cadillac announced it’s aspirations for Europe (WSJ 3/8/10 Sub required, NYT 3/2/10).
After a number of high profile failures to enter the European market in a big way, the folks at Cadillac want to be a niche player and are willing to accept the lower volumes that go along with such a strategy. By keeping volumes low, and presumably margins high, they expect that they can be profitable from year 1.
I think this strategy is sound and will succeed. Cadillac’s current design language is unique and appealing. There has always been a segment of the automotive market that is interested in something different and Europe is no different than the United States in this regard. In Europe where Mercedes-Benzes, Audis and BMWs are common and cover a multitude of uses including taxis, rental cars, executive cars and the vehicles of choice for captains of industry, there is an opportunity for something “different.”
My last post regarding BMW’s new campaign resulted in a few conversations with colleagues that were interesting and got me thinking about the challenges associated with marketing a global automotive brand and the concept of a global campaign.
Virtually every automotive brand is global. Not every brand is marketed in every country but I can’t think of any that are sold only in their country of origin. That means that every manufacturer must be concerned with what their respective brands stand for in each country in which they are distributed. Obviously, it is in the manufacturers’ interest to have their brands positioned in the same way from country to country. Customers and prospects should recognize the brands no matter where in the world they come into contact with them.
Of course the real world is not quite this neat and tidy. Brands have developed in different ways in different countries, so for some manufacturers it’s a challenge just to get their colleagues around the world on the same page regarding the brand’s core values. In my experience we do pretty well when we concern ourselves with the strategic underpinnings of the brand, where things fall apart is when execution of the strategy is considered.
There seem to be two basic approaches to execution, each with its own set of plusses and minuses:
It has a feeling of inevitability attached to it, but still, I can’t help but feel let down. For years many of us have held up BMW as the example of a car company that understands its brand and sticks to it. That all just changed. BMW is no longer the manufacturer of The Ultimate Driving Machine, according to this commercial “at BMW, we don’t just make cars, we make joy.”:
The longest running and probably best known automotive industry positioning line has been thrown in the bin in favor of “Joy.” I’m conflicted. On one hand, I’m shocked and I really believe that BMW has made a horrific mistake, but on the other hand, there are aspects of this new campaign that I like.
“The new “Joy” campaign ‘is a big departure for us,’ said Jack Pitney, vice president of marketing for BMW North America. ‘We hope to really add some humanity to our brand’ and show the diversity of its buyers,” — Wall Street Journal 2/15/10
In fact, what I like about the commercial is the humanity. It’s fun to watch people enjoying life in and around their BMWs. To see enthusiast communities enjoying their passions together. To see all kinds of people, some even like me, joined together by a common bond created by a car. It is truly what makes great automotive brands great, that sense of being part of something bigger than you are.
