Fisker Reboots Marketing With Old Media Ad Buy

In what Fisker insists is not a defensive reaction to a cascade of bad news that has put the company’s continued survival in doubt in at least a few observers’ minds, Fisker’s ad agencies, eMaxx Partners and Mono, have run a series of ads strung out over five pages of Friday’s Wall Street Journal print edition.

The ad buy consisted of four quarter-page ads followed by a full page devoted to Fisker. A representative of eMaxx called the ads a “sneak peek of the brand voice” that will be further exposed in a larger worldwide marketing campaign to be launched in the third quarter of 2012. Though the campaign was kicked off with an ad buy at one of the oldest of old media outlets, the larger campaign will include a variety of media outlets by not much in the way of television ads. The main thrust of the campaign seems to be painting Fisker as a visionary company akin to the inventors of the 19th and 20th centuries that brought us the modern world.

In the press email announcing the WSJ ads, Henrik Fisker said, “Launching a new car company is a difficult enough challenge on its own and one that is rarely attempted, let alone also trying to establish a new brand with a revolutionary new product and technology.” Roger Ormisher, director of global PR for Fisker, said, “The ads are about celebrating the achievement of bringing a new car company to market during one of the worst economic downturns ever. There are always critics and skeptics of any new project, especially one that’s been in the political spotlight. But this is underlining what we achieved.”

The ad buy in the Journal might seem anachronistic for a technology based product but despite new media and the growing impact of social networks, but if you want to sell cars to the people who can afford a $100,000 second or third car (which because of the Karma’s limited range it necessarily would be – Justin Bieber has a Cadillac CTS-V wagon to drive when his chrome wrapped Fisker Karma is low on juice) there are worse places than the weekend editions of the Wall Street Journal. For decades the automotive classifieds in the Journal have been like a candy store for car enthusiasts, and they continue to be so as other newspapers get put out of business by the Scylla of eBay and Charybdis of Craigslist. The classified automotive section of the WSJ of course has the high buck Ferraris, Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces that you’d expect but there usually are some interesting collectible enthusiasts cars for those on a slight more limited budget also listed by private parties or by exoticar dealers. Simply put, rich folks still read the print edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Fisker ad copy:

New isn’t easy.

History will tell you the new path is often the most difficult.

Discovery, far more work than settling.

But history will also tell you there are always a few who simply don’t care.

They don’t care that pushing forward is 4,000 times harder than being pulled along.

They don’t care that giant leaps require more than a single step.

And they don’t care that not everyone is behind them.

Because they know the doubters aren’t the builders.

The critics are never the creators.

And the skeptics, rarely the inventors.

When we set out to redefine and reshape how the

world thinks about cars, we knew it wouldn’t be easy.

And despite our many firsts, accomplishments, and accolades, it hasn’t been.

But that’s alright.

Building the future never is.