Chrysler got so much buzz out of its “Imported From Detroit” Super Bowl ad that it sold out of apparel bearing the tagline “within hours” and even had GM Marketing boss Joel Ewanick admitting
Yeah, we’re getting our butts kicked.
Now Chrysler is literally wrapping itself in the tagline, covering its Auburn Hills headquarters with the semi-ironic (what with ChryCo headquarters being located in Auburn Hills and all) phrase. And Chrysler’s ad agency is even exploring ways to remake Chrysler’s dealerships into “Detroit Embassies.” AdAge quotes the Creative Director for Chrysler’s ad agency Wieden + Kennedy as saying
One of things we’ve been working on for last couple of days is a dealer kit. How can we make dealers around America feel like Detroit embassies? How can we put this feeling about Detroit and its optimistic resurgence in dealerships? We’ll help them keep that stuff rolling.
But will it make a difference?
Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie notes that the ad works well with Chrysler’s image of an icon reborn but
Despite the ad’s emphasis on luxury, the 200 is really competing against the core mid-size sedans offered by both domestic and foreign automakers, which means such powerhouse products in terms of reliability … and reputation as the Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Nissan Altima and Hyundai Sonata. As one reviewer put it, the 200 appears to be a more value-priced alternative to these products than a strong head-to-head competitor.
Luckily for Chrysler, the ad has already increased consideration of the 200 (at least as measured by web searches) and, as MacDuffie puts it
What they’ll find is that most reviews of the car “draw an explicit contrast to the Sebring, the model on the same platform that preceded it. The Sebring had all sorts of problems, so it is easy for the 200 to make a positive impression by comparison.”
So the ad may open a few minds to Chrysler, but it still remains very much to be seen if sales improve much as a result. If not, Chrysler’s all-in bet on the tagline could transform it into a punchline.
It will be interesting to see if sales of t-shirt and caps translation into car sales.
Ironically, I expect the t-shirts and caps were “Imported from Shanghai”.
No. They were careful to make sure the shirts were made in the USA.
I still agree with what I said after the Superbowl. Better to go down swinging than with a pathetic whimper. Who knows you might just succeed, Rocky.
“Ya, Bum, ya coulda been a contenda.”
+100.
Great SuperBowl ad; they really hit it out of the park. The 200 may be a mediocre car, but it was only marginally important in the ad.
I imagine if you asked 100 people who saw the ad, most would remember the tagline but few would tie it to the 200.
Gold stars for you, Dan and Zarba. You figured out the true meaning and impact of the ad. Good thing TTAC has the B&B.
How can we make dealers around America feel like Detroit embassies? How can we put this feeling about Detroit and its optimistic resurgence in dealerships?
Use Robocop as a spokesperson. He would be a lot better than the rapper they used for the Super Bowl.
They should go all the way. Leave dead bodies in the parking lot and ignore them. Hire crackheads to deal with the public. Break half the lights and board up half the windows. Steal customers’ rims while they’re test driving new cars. Thanks for the Great Society, LBJ!
It might have been tough to film driving in Detroit without boarded up buildings, abandoned houses, and the usual residents milling about who don’t bring glamor to the city.
Darn. Chrysler registered the trademark, including apparel, last week. Guess I can’t embroider shirts and hats with the phrase.
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4003:m8ugkr.2.1
I wonder if there’s a market for
Imported From the Motor City
apparel.
BTW, the wholesale cost of heavyweight cotton t’s are about $2 ea. In Chrysler level quantities, single color screen printing is maybe 50 cents a shirt. $27/shirt gross profit margin isn’t bad. I’m sure that none of their cars have 90% profit margins.
Also, regarding the trademark. Pure Detroit, which sells Detroit and 313 embellished apparel started selling Imported From Detroit shirts on Feb. 7, 2011. Chrysler didn’t register the word mark in regards to apparel until Feb. 8. I’m not a lawyer but I have some experience with intellectual property and it seems to me that Pure Detroit has grounds to challenge Chrysler’s trademark since they were doing commerce with that mark on apparel before Chrysler was.
How can we make dealers around America feel like Detroit embassies?
Just make and sell the cars. Asking a question like this could go very wrong very quickly.
I’ll give ‘Made in Detroit’ 3 months before the novelty is worn off
Not a bad marketing strategy at all. Chrysler isn’t going to sell this car by wowing objective car reviewers or people cross-shopping with Hondas, Hyundais and Toyotas, so some good visibility among the buy-American crowd may just sell some of these things.
Hats off to Chrysler’s marketing people. Anything that keeps the brand in the public conciousness and reaffirms that it is making progress is a good thing. Success breeds success, and Chrysler is starting to regain the look of a successful company, or at least one that is heading that direction. The new products are appealing, the new ads are appealing, and people are actually buying their Tshirts. I like what Marchionne is doing with this company.
“If not, Chrysler’s all-in bet on the tagline could transform it into a punchline.”
It’s already a punchline. I’ll wager the interest in the slogan is because it says the opposite of what Chrysler intends, and that the company seems not to understand this. When people wear the shirt they are laughing at Chrysler’s denseness.
The line could enter the lexicon. Someone bemoaning their POS might sum the experience up by saying, “My car was imported from Detroit.” We’ll know they mean it could only have been built by quasi-government employees sinecured at a rent-seeking, ward-of-the-state company in a garbage town.
“garbage town”
And when was the last time you were in southeast Michigan? Where do you live?
You most likely don’t know sh*t about Detroit. You don’t know how bad it is because you don’t know how good it was.
You want to see ruin porn? I can show you buildings far more poetic and tragic than Michigan Central or the Packard plant. I can also show you still occupied mansions within the city limits that will be the equal or better of anything in your neck of the woods. You’ll see what I mean when my Jaguar XF Supercharged review runs. I deliberately photographed the car in a Detroit neighborhood just for folks like you.
While I share some of your sentiments about Treasury’s equity in GM and Chrysler, to a person, nobody that I’ve spoken to at GM and Chrysler thinks of the gov’t as anything other than a lender of last resort that let them stay in business. They want the gov’t to divest as soon as possible. It’s not easy running a business when your every move, from product decisions to ad buys are second guessed by people bleating Government Motors.
Businesspeople sometimes borrow money from loan sharks too. That doesn’t mean that they love the mafia. Desperation makes us all do stuff we don’t want to do.
When people wear the shirt they are laughing at Chrysler’s denseness.
Right, because people just love to shell out $30 for a $2 t-shirt in order to show how stupid they think someone else is.
Part of the motivation behind the Imported From Detroit ad, and why everyone at GM and Ford loves the ad too is that Detroiters are sick and effing tired of getting told that we don’t know how to do the one thing we know how to do best. While you and your oh-so-much-better-than-working-class-Detroiters friends have been carrying on how Detroit can’t build anything but crap, Americans were buying more than 2 million domestic branded pickup trucks a year. F-150s still outsell Camrys and Accords and I’m pretty sure that Silverados/Sierras aren’t far behind the Fords. Toyota’s Tundra is deep in 4th place, well behind even the Dodge Ram.
Sure, there were some bad business decisions made in this town. I can say the same for Hollywood, Wall Street and Washington D.C.
Many of the B&B know that I now publish Cars In Depth, a site that features 3D imagery. I spent a couple of hours at Ford’s virtual reality lab last week. You know where the most sophisticated virtual reality technology being used in the US is? No it’s not in Hollywood, or even in the aerospace industry, its in Dearborn, Warren and Auburn Hills, Michigan.
Detroit is home to some of the most talented engineers and industrial designers in the world. It’s such a “garbage town” that every car company and vendor that does business in North America (and many that don’t have retail car sales here as well) has some kind of facility in SEMI. Even after VW decided to move their NA HQ to the east coast, they still have over 400 people employed in the area. Tesla has an engineering shop in Pontiac. Hyundai builds engines in Dundee. Toyota has a billion dollar R&D center in Ann Arbor.
What do your neighbors design and build? My neighbors designed the ZR-1. That’s the Motor City, and that’s what we do.
Don’t know how to respond directly to Ronnie’s comment, so it goes here:
Ronnie,
The immense amount of passion and pride you have for your city and its industry are bursting through every seam of your comments on this post. That you are able to leap to the city’s defense and yet keep your arguments well-reasoned and respectable is to your credit (this goes for the MBella response too). Kudos. Looking forward to the Jag review.
@Ronnie:
While I don’t agree with tparkit’s assessment of Detroit as “a garbage town”, I think Chrysler may do well to remember that lots of people share his views.
I can say good things all day long about Miami, but negative perception is still going to be that it’s a trashy place full of drug dealing Tony Montana types.
It takes a long time to improve a city’s reputation, and right now Detroit’s is widely tarnished.
When the Chrysler ad ran during the Super Bowl, the people I knew from SEMI were on the verge of crying, while the ones I knew from Florida or Louisiana were busy using the word “hellscape” and making frozen dead homeless guy jokes.
“Imported from Detroit” is going to be a controversial tagline.
Sorry Ronnie… but for many Americans, Detroit is nothing at all but a decrepit, bombed-out cautionary tale of the perils of betting it all on a self-immolating manufacturing base, populated by union thugs. Well, that and a Northwest (now Delta) hub.
And as for those luxurious homes… I’m sure Lebanon has some nice areas, too.
Ronnie, I don’t blame you for talking your book. But, since you mentioned ruins, let me help:
http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2011/02/07/captured-the-ruins-of-detroit/2672/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/detroitderek/sets/72157601861458499/
Since life is not all photographs, especially for a former Detroit resident like me, here are a pair of telling tidbits:
— In Detroit, about 28% of homes and 62% of businesses are vacant.
— Time magazine reported that at September 2009 the unemployment rate in Detroit was 28.9%.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796,00.html
It’s not all grim:
“On a positive note, Detroit’s homicide rate dropped 14 percent last year. That prompted mayoral candidate Stanley Christmas to tell the Detroit News recently, ‘I don’t mean to be sarcastic, but there just isn’t anyone left to kill.\'”
So, said another way, “Imported from Michigan” would have been a more clever choice.
Every city in the world will rise and fall and rise and fall.
I lived in Seattle for several years and recently moved to Tacoma. Seattle is for the most part a nice City. At least the north end. For many decades, Tacoma was far nicer than Seattle and now Tacoma has some baaad areas. However, in the old part of Tacoma there are some beautiful mansions and really nice areas. Even the south end of Tacoma is cleaning up, although there is a long ways to go.
Although I’ve never been to Detroit, I can imagine there is a tremendous amount of talent there. Plus now with the wages so depressed there in the manufacturing sector, I can see Detroit beginning to make a strong comeback in this decade. If I were loaded and needed to source a manufacturing operation somewhere, I’d seriously consider Detroit for its availability of skilled workers and relatively low wages (by US standards, not S.E. Asian wages)
Tparkit:
“When people wear the shirt they are laughing at Chrysler’s denseness.”
Okaaaaaay, sure (rolls eyes).
Ronie, I can wax poetic about my home state and city just as much as you do about Detorit MI. The difference is that the companies based out of my home state aren’t out there begging people to not write them and their city off.
And using the ZR1 doesn’t really stir up any emotion or passion for me on the technological front. Big, supercharged V8 shoved into a light(ish) car, and then uses a handful of technologies that the Euro and Asian competitors have been using for a bit now. I think the ZR1 is an awesome car, but a tecnological tour de force it is not.
Then again, that may explain Detroit perfectly. It may look all shiney and pretty, but its still just a Corvette with a supercharger.
My experience: Never lived in Detroit, but both of my parents have, my dad was a cop there for a while before moving into the financial industry, mother was a teacher, and a very close friend proudly declares at least once a day how she, and in her words, “escaped Bosnia lite.”
Ronnie,
Loved your post, but I’ll offer one correction. If I’m not mistaken, Chrysler bought out it’s partners (Hyundai and Mitsubishi) in the Dundee engine plant and now controls 100% of it.
That the original poster left the Fusion off the list of competing cars speaks volumes for the inertia that has to be overcome.
Good point, but it’s odd the way he leaves out the Accord and substitutes the Civic.
Perhaps something controversial or counter-intuitive like “Imported From Detroit” might be just the thing to shake up the market.
Disclaimer 1: I’m a Marshall fan.
Disclaimer 2: I’m a marketing weasel by trade.
I loved the two-minute Super Bowl ad from a stylistic and message stand point. I also find it a shame that a huge marketing effort was wasted on such a God awful car.
You’re right, it is a God-awful car, and cars are the thing that people in Detroit know how to do best!
Have either of you driven a 200, especially a V6 with the 6 speed? I bet you haven’t even seen one up close. I haven’t so I’m not going to say it’s great, even though I am rooting for the company. I will say that it looks much improved over the previous model and folks I know that have sat in it at auto shows said that it’s very nice inside. But that’s all I know. I don’t give my opinion of cars that I have no experience with.
Windswords, I agree. I haven’t seen a 200 and sure haven’t driven one but I bet it’s a perfectly adequate car. There are really no horrible cars sold in this country anymore, no Yugos or early Hyundais on the market anymore. It may not be great and it may be too expensive but I bet it is a pretty good car for daily transportation.
@MikeAR
Of course, based on several hundred miles behind the wheel, I thought the Sebring was a perfectly adequate car. In a highly competitive market, adequate isn’t good enough.
I wish them the best, but here in Seattlopia, I don’t even think that Chrysler is on the radar map of most car shoppers. Toyanda, sure; Nissan and Mazda, maybe; and finally Hyundai/Kia on the way home. I don’t think this ad campaign is going to change any of that.
Probably not Seattleopia. But Kent, Renton, Enumclaw, Everett, Marysville, et all Chrysler is still on the radar.
I think the ad will backfire. If it get’s anyone into a showroom to look at the Sebring 200, they will leave disappointed when they find out it’s just a facelift. They should have kept this for when/if they release a replacement car that is competitive.
MBella,
You’re thinking like an enthusiast. Most consumers couldn’t tell a platform from a a platypus. Sure, car guys can see that the 200 has the same greenhouse as the Sebring, but I’m not sure that the avg car shopper is going to see the 200 and immediately think, “Why that’s just a facelifted Sebring!” It’s got a different front and rear clip and a completely different interior.
A lot of non-enthusiast perception will depend on whether car reviewers inform/remind consumers that the car is still based on the Sebring platform. A few reviews that I looked at online seemed to damn it with faint praise.
Car And Driver: “The new Chrysler 200 is a heavily worked-over Sebring, and it’s not bad!” and “For what is basically a rushed “fluff and buff” of a subpar product, the 200 shows how cleverly Chrysler has deployed its resources these past 12 months. For a fraction of the cost of a new car, it has transformed the Sebring from a joke into a decent-handling compact mid-size car…”
Auto Guide: “Perhaps no two vehicles have been more unloved by the automotive press over the past few years than Chrysler’s Sebring and its platform-mate, the Dodge Avenger. … the 200 is a redesigned and renamed Sebring. The 200 isn’t a completely new car, but it is a major change from the previous model”
For a purely marketing play this is a brilliant move on Chrysler’s part. They don’t need everyone to love them, but they do need a sizable number of people to give the company another shot.
Lots of towns have self-referential sayings and booster-isms that outsiders find corny or annoying. The townees are too impressed with their own cleverness to see the eye rolling and polite smiles of those not wearing the cheese head or nylon ‘pro’ jacket emblazoned with the symbolic motif.
The “Imported from Detroit” ad campaign has more than a whiff of an aphorism by the self pitying Stuart Smalley.
I know what you mean because of the self-affirmational nature of the ad but sorry, that ad is anything but self-pitying. It acknowledges the bad but says that we can and have risen above that.
Detroit is a town that wears its heart on its sleeve. The attitude is less, oh woe is me, than geez how did we dig ourselves so deep? With the exception of those with learned helplessness that expect Santa Claus in Washington or Lansing to come to their rescue, most of the people around here know that it’s up to us and that the Feds’ bailout of GM & Chrysler is the last time we can go to that well. Like Dr. Johnson said about the gallows, facing doom has a clarifying effect on the mind.
As an aside, I think that Franken’s Smalley character is unintentionally ironic in that he represents exactly the kind of therapeutic self-esteem culture that Sen. Franken’s politics represent. Smalley goes on and on with his platitudes but he never really changes, he never really grows. Washington has spent trillions trying to alleviate poverty and other social ills, yet they remain.
When Santa Claus brought me a “Yeah, it’s got a HEMI” bumpersticker, I modified it with an N and stuck it on my neon.
This time, I’m just going to cross-out Detroit and write “Mexico” instead. It’ll be cute.
They addressed a lot of shortcomings of the Sebring. The changes were quite extensive and the result will appeal to many buyers. At least that’s what they are hoping. As Sergio has said they only have one shot at getting this right, all they can do now is hope that buyers give them some consideration. According to experts that follow these things, the ad has given them that. The only thing left to be seen is whether the sales follow.
They are definitely All-In, and good luck to them.
This ad is genius.
If this was just about Chrysler, they would first have to talk about their failures – show us pictures of 1979 Cordobas and 1984 LeBarons – and then admit all of their mistakes. Next they would have to say, “We sold you a bill of goods back then, but we’re better than that now.” Honest, but to my mind it sounds like an abuser trying to talk his way back into your life. Still want to buy a Chrysler?
By making an ad about Detroit, Chrysler avoids that trap. There is no downside to talking about everything that is wrong with the city. The ruins are picturesque and none of the location shots make you remember the crappy car your grandma drove. Then, they show how the people of Detroit are working to keep their city alive – it’s a mighty struggle that appeals to every American’s pride of place and our natural love of the underdog who just will not quit. I love it! I want to be a part of it! Sign me up for a new 300!
Like I said – genius.
It seems that those cities at the bottom of the “best places to live” lists are the ones that have to try to attract outsiders by hiring slick marketers to make their region seem much nicer than it really is. Having spent 20+ years “living” (existing) in Buffalo (1976-1997), I can attest to this. They had this stupid “Talkin’ Proud” campaign that went on during the late ’80’s and early ’90s, that truly made Buffalo seem like a nice place to live. Seems that they filmed the ads during the only 3 sunny days of the summer, and made it seem like that area was nothing but concerts in the park and great food. I get the same impression from reading all this Detroit-hugging by the 2 or 3 guys who still live there by choice. If you choose to live in a region plagued by bad weather, high taxes and grouchy people, go ahead. Just don’t trumpet your city to the rest of us who have found infinitely better places to live! I live in SC now, and haven’t been back to Buffalo since 2001. Never plan to go back either.
If you choose to live in a region plagued by bad weather, high taxes and grouchy people, go ahead.
I’m not convinced the ‘Imported from Detroit’ campaign is going to do much, but for what it’s worth, the taxes in Michigan are middle-of-the pack (nowhere close to states like California, New York, New Jersey or Illinois). And the weather? No worse than New York or Chicago (and a hell of a lot better than Cleveland, Buffalo, or Minneapolis). Michigan is a beautiful state, with hundreds of miles of beaches and thousands of lakes — much better than Illinois (I know — I lived there for a long time).
“Now Chrysler is literally wrapping itself in the tagline, covering its Auburn Hills headquarters with the semi-ironic (what with ChryCo headquarters being located in Auburn Hills and all) phrase.”
Funny. I remember TTAC proclaiming that Camry’s were more American than Fusions because of where they were made. But Toyota’s HQ is in Tokyo. As in Japan. That’s not a problem for Toyota, but Chrysler’s HQ is a few miles up the road and the tagline is “semi ironic” for a car which is actually made in a Detroit suburb? My head hurts trying to figure this one out.
All I got out of the Imported from Detroit commercials was “Drive a rebranded Siebring and you too can be just like an angry white kid who has made millions by pretending to be a drug addict and rap about beating his mother and murdering his wife.”
Yeah, that is exactly the message I want to get across. I listen to Eminem just as much as the next guy when working out and running, but really, if my company was trying to get across the idea that we were contenders and what not, I would pick a slightly better spokesperson.
I think these ads are hitting a nerve and may just work. The issue is: for those individuals who buy Chrysler based on perception that they have genuinely changed, will the cars themselves reflect that confidence as to their quality? They had better, or game over. People who are CamCord and FusIbu buyers probably won’t change, but those considering Hyundai and Kia might. On the subject of Detroit – It’s suffered like so many other cities in the “rust belt”. What you see are the poorer areas that are devastated and abandoned. St. Louis – the northern section is almost as bad, lots of empty lots. That’s the “donut effect” of development that has happened in so many cities, and the inner areas were the first to go. Downtown Detroit? It all depends on the citizens and leaders. If it’s worth saving to the citizens, it will be saved and will thrive when the perception that it will be safe reaches the hearts of those citizens. So many things appear to be circling the drain right now, who knows what the near future will bring. Hang on, as it will be an interesting ride!
Geez bikephil. Don’t come back. we can live without you here in Buffalo. Having lived in Buffalo my whole life (+50 years), I can attest that yes, it has it’s problems but it has many very nice communities both within the city and out in the burbs. Communities that are at least as good as any other metro area. And we certainly have many more than 3 sunny days in the summer. I would wager that we have about as nice a summer weather as any area in the US. So I’m still “talking proud” about my hometown. And I live here by choice, with a great private sector job making good money. It really actually can be done, even in Buffalo.
Oh, and the food is great and the concerts in the park are jammed pack and loads of fun.
When I heard that slogan I knew–just knew–there would be people who didn’t get it. Geographical awareness in this country is miserable.
So I think the slogan “Imported from Detroit” is a clever and cynical ruse to convince the endarkened masses that all Chryslers (even the ones predominately made in the US) are actually imported from this foreign country, Detroit.
Hey, Eminiem is from there too!
I have got to hand it to Chrysler’s ad company. I think the “imported from Detroit” ad is brilliant and the one for the Charger “we’ve seen that movie and we know how it ends…with machines harvesting humans..” is hilarious. If the aim of the ads is to get you talking about the company and its products as well as to consider purchasing them then this ad campaign has been incredibly successful.
Am I the only one that thought that the 200 mural on the building with the Chrysler logo looked a lot like a cartoon Eminem wearing a hoodie?
The 200 is a gussied up interim car that can’t be sold on its merits. H.L. Mencken said ‘nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” But Chrysler/Fiat just might.
Then again, maybe I’ll start my own line of ‘apparel’ with the tagline ‘imported from New Fallujah.’
Even if the cars are improved from a quality standpoint, they are still butt-ugly – the 200/Avenger and Caliber models in particular. It’s like putting a fancy dress on Maggie Gyllenhaal. No matter how talented and fancily dressed, still fug as shit.
Dumb marketing, imo. 99% of Americans have a bad impression of Detroit. Face it, Detroit’s a failed city, and Chrysler is a failed brand that has now been bailed out twice. And it’s not even an American company anymore, it’s Italian.
Flashy marketing doesn’t sell cars, it’s not beer or sneakers. Product quality sells car, and Chrysler has crap product. They’ll be at the trough once again begging for a government handout, maybe Eminem can loan them some money.
I don’t know why they insisted on making the Sebring/Avenger and Caliber in the first place.
The Germans made ’em do it.