Every advertiser faces a basic choice at the outset of a campaign: come up with unique, relatable imagery for ads, or riff on an established cultural meme. Volkswagen went the latter route with its “Darth Vader” Super Bowl ad, achieving huge success: it was the most popular auto-related ad of the Super Bowl, and the Youtube version has received over 40 million views. The only problem with appropriating such popular imagery: you don’t enjoy unique rights to it, meaning you can be easily hoisted by your own petard. Which is exactly what’s happened here to Volkswagen. Greenpeace is angry that VW opposed a bid to bump the EU’s 2020 emissions goal from the agreed-upon 20% to 30% of 1990 levels (even though C02 emissions improved 3.7% last year and 5.1% in 2009, and average emissions are on track to hit the 130g/km 2015 goal ahead of schedule). As a result, they’ve turned VW’s hugely popular “Darth Vader” ad on its head, identifying the giant automaker with the evil Lord Vader, and encouraging fans to “join the rebellion.”
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Category: Advertising
Ronnie Schreiber reckoned that Chrysler would be able to protect its rights to the phrase “Imported From Detroit” in its lawsuit against local clothing firm MODA, but Automotive News [sub] reports that
U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled that Chrysler’s request didn’t show that it would suffer irreparable harm or that it had a strong likelihood of winning its case. That means Pure Detroit’s owner, Detroit retailer Moda Group LLC, can continue selling its “Imported from Detroit” products.
Tarnow also noted that Chrysler doesn’t have a trademark on “Imported from Detroit” and rejected the automaker’s argument that trademark law isn’t applicable to the case.
Interestingly, the last time Chrysler fought over its brand intellectual property (in a dispute with a Florida high school that had adopted the Ram’s Head logo as its school symbol), it won… only to stop using the the logo for Dodges when it spun off its Ram brand. In any case, this latest ruling may take Chrysler’s tagline out of its complete control, but it should also stimulate a strong market in knock-off goods bearing the line, ultimately increasing its exposure. And, at the end of the day, Chrysler needs to look past Detroit-boosting if it wants to get its marketing back on a nationally-appealing footing and win back sales on the coasts. This ruling may not be sucha bad thing after all….
Jacques Séguéla, a French photographer and founder of the advertising agency RSCG supposedly once said: “Don’t tell my mother I’m in advertising, she thinks I’m a pianist in a brothel”. It must have been an exclusive brothel. Photographers, especially for cars, are paid higher and are sought after more than exquisite courtesans. Fees of $1,000 per hour are not unheard of. What do they do for that much money? They make the cars look good. Read More >
Having kept a relatively low profile since the disastrous “My Tank Is Full” series of ads, Ram is fighting to help keep Chrysler profitable with a new series of ads highlighting the Ram’s connection to “Wild West” values. And like nearly every bit of advertising approved by Chrysler Group ad boss Olivier Francois, it’s heavy on the hyper-sincere schlock, which makes the spots end up feeling like they’re selling a political candidate rather than a truck. And this just as it seemed like truck ads were slowly moving away from some of their previous cliches. Does doubling down on sincerity and the mythical Western ethos make sense as a way for Ram to catch back up on volume it’s lost over the last few years? Or should Ford’s stunning 50%-ish take rate on EcoBoost V6 engines in F-Series be pointing towards a more pragmatic, consumer-needs-oriented marketing campaign? Watch as many of the ads as you like and be sure to let us know where you see the Ram brand and its marketing effort heading.
Are Audi’s Mad Men missing Bertel’s services? They must be, as the Detroit Free Press reports that Eminem’s licensing firm has filed a motion in German court seeking to ban this advertisement. Joel Martin, manager of Eight Mile Style, tells the Freep that Audi did not license the Eminem song “Lose Yourself,” adding
It’s stunning. What makes it extraordinary is the similarity to the way Chrysler is using (the song). We saw it and said, “This has got to be a joke.”
At this point Audi’s only statement on the matter comes from its US operations, which simply notes that the A6 Avant will not be marketed here. “This has got to be a joke,” sure seems to sum the situation up…
Sometimes honesty is the best policy…
After the zusammenhang of the bailout era, green car ads have juiced up the competitive battles in automotive marketing, with Chevy attacking “range anxiety,” Hyundai wrangling the asterisks and now, Nissan busting the Volt’s chops for enjoying the odd sip of gasoline. After leading off its Leaf marketing effort with a saccharine ad featuring a polar bear driven by global warming from his arctic home, Nissan is getting back on track by bashing its highest-profile competitor… and given that the EV market is still dependent on early-adopters in search of EV purity, the attack is a fairly shrewd one. Eventually the market will be less hung up on the novelty of pure-electric cars and will look at overall efficiency and capability. For the time being, however, Nissan’s got to make the most of its unmatched gamble on the pure electric car. Watch the ad after the jump
Saab is on the hunt for a new advertising agency to take the creative lead on its estimated $114 million global advertising account. According to the U.K. advertising industry rag Campaign, the pitch “could be delayed following problems with production at the carmaker and reports of issues with paying suppliers.”
For more than 15 years, the Saab account had been handled by Lowe’s Swedish office Lowe Brindfors. US and UK advertising was handled by the old GM standby McCann. It is quite common that an account is put under review after such a long time, especially when new owners come in. However, the cause of the pitch was different this time. Lowe Brindfors took a hike. Read More >
Surf on over to hyundaiusa.com and ford.com, and the two momentum-blessed automakers will greet you in a remarkably similar fashion: with a lineup of 40 MPG Highway-rated vehicles. Of course, Hyundai would, in its inimitable “asterisk-wrangling” style, point out that Ford’s 40 MPG requires more footnotes than a David Foster Wallace book. But then Ford might shoot back that Hyundai leaves out any reference to City or Highway ratings in its lineup, leaving consumers to play “hunt the legal disclaimer” itself. And as Autoobserver recently noted, highway ratings make for good ad fodder, but combined EPA ratings are much more helpful to consumers.
This new Volkswagen ad is the first global thrust of the firm’s latest ad campaign, which centers around the concept of environmental friendliness, and the tagline “Think Blue.” The ad is nothing special in itself, other than being somewhat hypnotic in its cross-cultural depiction of changing environmental consciousness, but the blue-is-the-new-green campaign as a whole is more than a little confusing for a number of reasons.
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Honda’s latest Civic may not have made a great impression on TTAC’s Best and Brightest, but the new compact isn’t targeting any one buyer anyway. As theinspirationroom.com reports [click through for new ad videos], Honda’s new Civic campaign is all about broadening the model’s appeal… to five specific stereotypes.
The campaign features five distinct characters, each representing a different model. The Urban Woodsman, Jack, lives in the city but is at home in the woods. He likes his Hybrid for its great fuel efficiency, which comes in handy on his many trips to the great outdoors. The Zombie, Mitch, is a salesman who’s into high-tech gadgets. His Civic Sedan is loaded with options like Bluetooth HandsFreeLink and navigation system with FM Traffic. The Monster, Teeny, is a bubbly and studious college coed. Her practical nature and frugal budget align with the fuel-efficient HF model. The Ninja, Aiko, is cute, innocent and deadly. A martial-arts phenom who’s partial to red licorice and arcade games, she pairs well with the high-energy performance of the Si model. Cesar, the Champion Luchador, is somewhat of a celebrity. He’s handsome, charming and a bit vain so he, of course, appreciates the Civic Coupe’s sleek lines.
Of course, Honda never needed this kind of segmentation silliness (which reeks of the “brand central studios” that Bob Lutz rips in his new book) in order to make its Civic one of the best-selling nameplates in the US market. Meanwhile, the requisite price of this kind of “personality profiling” is that the mass market “profile” (i.e. the people who buy the majority of Civics) gets a short shrift compared to the smaller but sexier niche profiles. As a result, Honda signals that it sees the bulk of Civic buyers as “zombies,” with no distinguishing characteristics besides a vague affinity for tech toys. Compare this to the legendary tagline “you meet the nicest people on a Honda,” and you’ll begin to get a sense of how far Honda’s marketing has fallen in recent years…
Of all the barriers standing in the way of commercial success for electric cars, the “image issue” is perhaps one of the least understood. Most EV firms have embraced the distinctively Western “green consumption” trend, in which a kind of environmental asceticism drives consumer values of downsizing and ultimately self-denial. But making a conscious choice to not use gasoline and accepting whatever the market happens to offer is not a phenomenon that automakers can expect to sustain itself. If they ever want to achieve mass acceptance, EVs need an image context that goes beyond graywater recycling, “freeganism” and other highly conscious but ultimately self-denying lifestyle choices.
Racing is one obvious way to broaden EV appeal, as it highlights the positive performance aspects of EV drivetrains, but sadly no major OEM will commit to an EV racing series. Besides, racing hardly builds on the existing (if limited) green appeal of EVs. Enter the EV as disaster response vehicle. The NYT has a fantastic story about the use of EVs in rescue efforts after the Japanese quake/tsunami, when gas was largely unavailable. The story proves that EVs, far from being mere lifestyle accessories, can be hugely useful in the right circumstances. And because so many green lifestyle choices stem from a perspective of apocalyptic expectation, this story both broadens and builds on the EV’s existing appeal. Most importantly of all, pictures like the one above will do more to banish the limp-wristed, “anti-luxury” image that curses EVs than just about anything else. Just as SUV buyers would swell with pride seeing an ad image of their Explorer in off-road conditions they would never visit themselves, the image of EVs running first-responder missions in a quake-torn Japan could be of lasting significance.
Hey you, you’re an “auto enthusiast,” right? You care about the “driving experience, yes”? Good, name a top-20 global automaker that sells one brand of cars globally, marketed specifically to enthusiasts.
Take your time answering, but there’s only one… and it has something very serious to say to you.
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Every few years, Beijing’s government lashes out against billboards that advertise an ostentatious lifestyle. These exhortations are largely ignored, which preserves an endless source of involuntary humor. Read More >
A news brief from the Agenzia Giornalistica Italia notes
AGI) Turin – FIAT CEO Sergio Marchionne has said that it is not true that FIAT is Americanizing its models, on the contrary, more than 50% of Chrysler parts “start off from a European basis”. Speaking at a press conference, Marchionne also emphasized that the “internationalization process has began, and is making progress and our engineering is too.” The CEO also said that, “it is totally absurd to say that an American car is not a Fiat product.”
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