Automakers Seek Game-Changers in Fresh TV Ad Campaigns
January 07, 2009
By Dale Buss
Striking every attitude from empathy to ambivalence to something resembling snarkiness, automakers have been using new TV-advertising campaigns to try to jolt consumers off their couches and into dealer showrooms.
The headwinds are daunting, but automakers have been launching a greater variety of messages than at any time in recent memory - attempting to find something, anything that punches effectively through the pervasive gloom in American households and reignites their desire and confidence to make a major purchase.
Only two years ago, automotive television advertising focused on power, fun and styling; that era already has become a distant memory. Even last summer, when fuel-economy positioning came to dominate in the wake of $4-a-gallon gasoline, now seems like the good old days - because at that point, at least auto-company marketers could be clear about the fulcrum of persuasion.
With the new year clearing calendars, moving past a national preoccupation with the machinations of America's fiscal crisis, bringing a fresh administration to Washington, and offering a natural platform for other "change" messages, automakers and their ad agencies have begun wrestling with the opportunities and challenges of this sobered age.
Divergent Approaches
As they work quickly as possible to obtain a more solid grasp on the zeitgeist, automakers are trying a number of different ways in their TV and other advertising to connect with Americans whose economic expectations and spending plans have reached such a low ebb.
Here's how each of the major OEMs, and some of the minor ones, are doing it:
Ford: Differentiation. Ford is in a unique position of all automakers operating in the U.S.
market: It's one of the Detroit Three, but it has managed to escape some of the baggage that attends to GM and Chrysler because Ford told the federal government it didn't require any immediate rescue funds.
This, of course, presents Ford with a potentially golden opportunity to differentiate itself sharply, at least from its cross-town rivals. Polls and other indicators have made it very clear that the American people were generally unsupportive of President Bush's granting of $17.4 billion in loan guarantees to GM and Chrysler, which gives Ford a great edge on a very important element of current public sentiment.
To what extent will Ford try to take advantage of federal-government rescues of GM and Chrysler that Ford, after all, itself supported? Ford marketing executives have been furiously working on exactly how they will go about striking with this poker-hot iron.
Ford's executive vice president of marketing communications, Jim Farley, on Monday professed that this contrast had little to do with Ford's increase in market share in December. "Going forward," however, he added, "we definitely see some opportunity if we can take advantage of [consumer] goodwill. But it will come down to the marketing team's capturing some of that goodwill as we launch new products."
Another person hugely aware of the stakes is George Rogers, CEO of Team Detroit, the Dearborn, Mich.-based consortium of ad agencies that handles Ford's marketing. And so in late December, he was offering basically no comment. "In normal situations," he told AutoObserver, "we could be transparent."
But Ford has provided some clues as to its overall response by how it already has reacted to another ripe chance for separating itself from GM and Chrysler: credit availability. It made some mention in national ads in December, for example, of the fact that its captive-finance arm still had available credit; by contrast, of course, GM and Chrysler had throttled their own financing offers.
Yet, Rogers said, Ford philosophically believes that emphasizing financing availability and options - even by contrast to the other guys -- generally is something that the company isn't going to blare in national TV ads.
"That kind of communications more broadly belongs in lower-funnel" outlets such as newspapers, online advertising, and marketing by dealerships. "In certain markets we're talking about how Ford Credit is a key component to our playbook. But we're doing it on a localized basis."
GM: Knowingness. GM also is in a unique position these days - although, of course, it's a much less desirable one than Ford. It requested the bulk of federal-government assistance; its leadership was scored by Congress and the media far more extensively in the bailout process; and the credit it could make available to its buyers was constricted much more visibly over the last several months, compared with its rivals.
So as they approach the new year, GM's marketers have been in a position requiring what can only be described as near sheepishness - or, at least, a keen and humble realization of their delicate position in the marketplace right now. At the same time, the company's consequential and high-profile distress also has required them to muster some bravado.
For those reasons, the resulting stream of marketing messages from GM have comprised the very definition of mixed, as the company gingerly - and rather awkwardly, so far - reflects its multifarious reality.
When GMAC finally received a federal-government lifeline toward the end of the year, for example, it enabled GM to tap into its captive finance arm for run-of-the-mill buyers. And Mark LaNeve, GM's head of sales and marketing, called a rare holiday-season press teleconference to announce GM's first zero-percent APR program in some months.
"This will signal that GM is back in the game and that your GM dealer is back in the game of financing vehicles," he said.
But before and after this announcement, GM was running advertisements that ended with a curious tagline. The national TV spots touted new or noteworthy vehicles such as the Chevrolet Malibu and Chevrolet Traverse, citing various attributes, then said, "Made by GM ... Surprised?"
Apparently, GM was trying to wink at American consumers with this line, as if to say, We know that we've been vilified lately as a market slouch unworthy of taxpayer support. But we make this vehicle. So you can believe in us. Only consumers' reactions will tell whether the company went overboard with this approach and tipped into a type of candor that no car buyer could love.
Hyundai: Directness. Lots of things have gotten in the way of automotive sales over the last nine months, including skyrocketing gasoline prices and the global credit crunch, but American consumers start with the consideration: Will I have a job or not?
So the company launched its Hyundai Assurance program
with TV ads during the National Football League playoffs over the weekend. "Buy any new Hyundai and if in the next year you lose your income, we'll let you return it," promises the voiceover. It's hard to be more direct than that about addressing the centrality of employment status.
Hyundai also sets up its new message nicely. It begins by letting viewers know that the ad is "not about cars -- it's about the people who drive them."
The Korea-based company proceeds to remind Americans about how it has earned their trust before, when it introduced 10-year, 100,000-mile powertrain warranties. "A decade ago, Hyundai gave people confidence with the industry's best warranty," the ad says.
And, the spot continues, "Today, we're providing another kind of confidence"; then it makes the purchase-return pledge. It ends: "That's the Hyundai Assurance. We're all in this together, and we'll all get through it together."
Nissan: Bite. Nissan's marketers saw an opportunity last fall to pick up some market share from the troubled Detroit Three and went to the plate with a broad new program of low-interest financing as well as a stripped-down version of the Nissan Versa subcompact that now retails for under $10,000.
In their most recent national TV advertising, Nissan's brand stewards also shrewdly laid out their differences with some rivals - taking a swipe at the Detroit Three without seeming too impolite.
"You need more than a car - you need a car company," said the ad for Nissan's year-end omnibus incentive program that concluded January 2.
Later, in a spot whose content was mainly about credit trems and availability, Nissan added what could have been inferred as a knock on GM and Chrysler, which had to sharply curtail captive financing last fall. "When you need it most, Nissan delivers."
"That's trying to accentuate an advantage that they think they have, so it makes sense," said Rogers of Team Detroit. But while the approach "is certainly a tactic that is working for them, I don't see it working broadly in the market."
Chrysler: Gratitude. As it continues to struggle for mere survival, Chrysler's most visible marketing support is behind its new Dodge Ram truck, which must do well for the company to make it as a going concern.
In the meantime, Chrysler also has nodded toward the haplessness of its situation by expressing public thanks for the taxpayer support, in end-of-the-year advertisements in The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
And in its presentation of its sales results on Monday, Chrysler continued its downcast and sober approach to the public. "We have a special bond with the American people now," its statement read, "and pledge to continue our efforts to provide the best quality and best value in the marketplace."
Honda: Insouciance. During his period, only Honda would have the chutzpah - although
Toyota probably also could get away with it - to run new national TV ads that seem to pay absolutely no mind at all to the dramatic market backdrop. Honda was the last of the Big Six automakers in this market to take on water, but nevertheless, for all of 2008, its sales still eased by 8 percent.
No matter. In no fewer than five new national TV ads that it has begun airing, Honda touts specific Honda and Acura models and their appeal, with no mention of industry, market, cultural or social context.
So, for example, in the Acura TL, one ad says, "Strength meets intelligence," while another calls the TL "the most powerful Acura ever built." The Honda Ridgeline is "surprisingly efficient." Consumers should learn to "CR(a)V(e)" the Honda CR-V. And Honda's subcompact is "Fit to go."
Toyota: Steadiness. At least Toyota's recent TV advertising offers some recognition of how bad the market has become: For the just-ended holiday season, its usual year-end
"Toyotathon" incentive extravaganza became "the Toyotathon of Toyotathons."
At the same time, however, Toyota does have an important new model to promote in the U.S. market: the Venza crossover. Stealing a page from Chevrolet's launch of the Traverse last fall - with the tag line of "Everything you always wanted, and more" - Toyota's new TV ads promote "the car that keeps pace with you - because you're more than one thing. So is Venza."
Suzuki: Anachronism. Yes, marketing budgets are tight in this new environment, but it seems as if Suzuki executives may have fallen in love with creative execution at the expense of badly ignoring market realities.
The new TV spot for the Suzuki SX-4 quite nicely points out that the vehicle "gets 30 miles a gallon on the highway, has a pop-up navi[gation system], available all-wheel-drive, and starts under $16,000."
But inexplicably, the ad also highlights gasoline prices at a moment when they are near a five-year low in the U.S. market. True enough: They spiked to an easy record of more than $4 a gallon last summer, but the market and the world have greatly changed - again - in the last six months.
"Just because there's a gas crisis," Suzuki says in the ad, "doesn't mean there has to be a fun crisis."
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