UAW Ad Campaign Picks Appropriate Time, Intriguing Target Markets
December 18, 2007

By Dale Buss 

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union has hatched a pre-Christmas advertising campaign in selected regional markets that combines a new series of television spots with a strong interactive element.

The ads debuted this week in five metro media markets in the Midwest and South, featuring UAW members discussing various aspects and causes of the Detroit-based union. The ads invite viewers to proceed to a Web site, IAmtheUAW.org, which invites union members and supporters to submit their own stories, photos, podcasts and videos.

The timing of the campaign is interesting because it comes within weeks after the union -– whose long-dwindling rolls now are down to about 640,000 active members -– ratified new labor contracts with each of the Detroit Three automakers. If there’s any time over the last several years when the UAW could expect outsiders to admire the institution’s principles and leadership, it is now.

That’s because the union has been widely hailed for stepping up in those pacts to the existential necessity to grant significant, paradigm-shaking changes in business as usual. These changes -– including the union assumption of responsibilities for administering health-insurance benefits for its automotive members -- will help the domestic automakers’ cost structures in their pitched battle with non-UAW competitors for a U.S. market that promises to be shrinking for the foreseeable future.

But UAW spokesman Roger Gerson told AutoObserver that the campaign "isn't tied to any one event."

The media targets for the campaign also are intriguing. They include Detroit and Indianapolis -– two logical areas, where many union members work and live. But the other markets are Nashville, Louisville and Jackson, Mississippi, each of which is a largely non-union city –- but is close to foreign-owned auto plants where the UAW so far has failed to win representation battles.

"We looked at a range of markets in which we were well known, and some in which we were lesser known," Gerson said.

It isn't clear how long the campaign will run or whether the union will extend it to other media markets. Gerson said only that the campaign "will continue in the months ahead" and that "it's a work in progress."

Tony Pinelli, president of UAW Local 400 in Utica, Michigan, told AutoObserver that the new campaign “is a great way to showcase the great things are members are doing in the community,” including organizing, political action and bargaining. The campaign is aimed at both internal and external audiences, said Pinelli, whose local represents workers in Ford engine and trim plants, among others.

The ads feature UAW members including Daphne Rice talking about the union’s efforts to support charitable causes; Andrew Linko discussing workplace safety; Yolanda Crosby addressing toy safety and fair trade standards; and UAW retiree James Fairchild talking about the need for higher workplace standards in the global economy.

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