New Chrysler Tries to Win Over Consumers With Dream Ad Campaign
April 08, 2008

By Dale Buss

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. -- Faced with a public that remains skeptical about the nature of Chrysler’s rebirth, the company will break a new corporate positioning campaign on April 14 that is intended to help win over American consumers.

“We want to increase consideration, re-engage with customers, and target community influencers and current owners,” said Deborah Meyer, Chrysler’s chief marketing officer, in explaining the campaign to automotive press here on Monday. It will begin with both TV and print advertisements.

“It’s important to establish a halo level of communications” with consumers, Meyer explained. “We have new owners, new products, new management and a new commitment” to restoring greatness to the iconic American automobile brand.

She said that Chrysler intends to “better serve the market and our customers, and be very nimble, fast and aggressive. So we need to be very in touch with consumers.”

Going on the Offense

Arguably, Chrysler has a steeper hill to climb than any other major automaker when it comes to enhancing perceptions among American consumers -- though all automakers are struggling right now in a down market. Since Chrysler’s takeover by Cerberus Capital Management last year, new management led by CEO Robert Nardelli mainly has been slashing production, models and jobs in a furious bid to steady the newly privately held company financially, and for the short term.

Chrysler LLC’s new corporate-branding campaign is part of a nascent effort to put a more positive spin on a strategy that Chrysler executives hope will enable the company to weather and emerge stronger from the current slump, either as a revitalized concern that will remain a part of the U.S. auto market – or in better shape for resale.

So far, Nardelli and his marketing team have been emphasizing their improved responsiveness to consumer concerns and requests. For example, Meyer said today that the new management already has ordered about 400 specific line-item improvements in Chrysler vehicles – an update of an earlier count of about 260 improvements that company executives have been quoting frequently. Chrysler said the changes represent a total investment of a half-billion dollars.

But with the new campaign, among other things Chrysler is trying to reassure its various constituencies that its strategy is to do far more than slash costs to the bone and react to product flaws. Chrysler intends to “begin a dialogue with America about the company’s culture and passion for delivering on customers’ dreams,” it said in a statement.

Campaign is Just the Beginning

Meyer said Chrysler determined that its new campaign “must be credible to consumers, differentiating, relevant and durable” as well as “work symbiotically with our brands.”

Chrysler will use the theme line, “If you can dream it, we can build it” – a new slogan that it also is associating with advertising for the 2009 Dodge Journey that it is launching this month.

A new television spot, titled Assembly Road, will anchor the campaign. It takes vehicle assembly “off the line and onto the open road” as Chrysler customers add, to an empty chassis, various features that they wanted to see in Chrysler vehicles, ranging from a dual-screen DVD system to Swivel ‘n Go seating.

Corporate print ads in publications including The Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine ask and answer, from Chrysler’s perspective, questions such as “Who took the wheels off the American dream?” Chrysler answers about what it is doing technologically to keep customers’ love affairs with their vehicles intact. The ad copy is long, but Meyer said that the company didn’t want to “underestimate American consumers. If it’s interesting and relevant, they’ll read it.”

Meyer said that Chrysler will continue to add more “layers” of the corporate campaign throughout the year and noted that it is synchronizing other corporate-marketing efforts with the advertising.

For example, Chrysler has expanded the size of its still-forming online Customer Advisory Board to 5,000 members from the originally targeted 2,000 because so many consumers have demonstrated interest in joining it, Meyer said.

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