Customers in this segment want emotional appeal, sporty design and dynamic driving properties. The S60 has it all. We are convinced that it will be one of the strongest contenders around

Volvo CEO Stephen Odell explains in the press release for the new S60 why people who buy 3 Series sedans don’t cross-shop Volvo… and why he wants to expand his brand so that someday they might. But leaving aside the sad fact that every luxury brand wants to build “the new 3 Series,” we’re having a hard time figuring this move out. Considering that Volvo is about to get a Chinese-style upscale overhaul, expect the “dynamic driving properties” part of the “what does Volvo stand for this week” exercise to fall off the radar with haste. And really, Volvo makes a lot more sense as a Euro-tinged, safety-forward alternative to Lexus and (in China) Buick than a BMW wannabe.

Can you tell the difference between one of these:

and one of these?

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One month ago DARTZ presented uberluxury armored car with whale penis interior – PROMBRON’ (ex.RussoBaltique), lot of people name this car as DARTZ.KOMBAT. As the world’s resonance was very huge and DARTZ got lot of angry e-mails from Greenpeace, WWF and also Pamela Anderson, DARTZ make strong decision to stop their plans regarding such interior.

“We have no any ideas to kill the whale or something like that. All we want – to make just luxury car. Real luxury car which will be world number one car. Our brand was started at 1869 when in Riga was opened Coach Factory or Russo Baltiysky Vagonnij Zavod – PBVZ, and first products was luxury train coaches. At 1907 was made a decision to open Car Department, and at 1909 first car left factory – the name of this car was RussoBalt. This was luxury and sport cars. At 1911 specially for Monaco Rally car got french style name – RussoBaltique. At 1912 factory made world first 4 x 4 wheel drive car, and at 1914 – armored car. All we want to unite luxury and armoring traditions of RussoBalt factory in one car, which brand celebrated 100 years now. At 1922 RussoBalt was renamed to PROMBRON’ (ex.RussoBalt).

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Gag. And sigh. I’d kinda hoped that New York Times would stay away from the FoMoCo-flavored Kool-Aid long enough to see the potential drawbacks to the automaker’s inflatable seat belt idea. Or at least provide a reasonably coherent and comprehensive argument for the overarching supposition that the brand’s dedication to passenger safety supersedes that of its rivals. But no. The original PR-release-based article in the Business section raises but one red flag: “Just 6 percent of respondents chose safety as their top priority.” And then the Freakonomics column—an endlessly self-aggrandizing advertisement masquerading as editorial—dumps a pound of sugar on the proceedings. “In SuperFreakonomics, we tell the story of how Robert Strange McNamara, an outsider at the Ford Motor Co., led the charge the put seat belts in automobiles at Ford. It was not a popular decision within the company nor with the public; pushing for a safety device in a car did a bit too good of a job of reminding people that cars could be quite unsafe. But McNamara got his way. Over time (a long time, it turned out), the seat belt won widespread adoption, saving roughly 250,000 lives in the U.S. alone since 1975 . . . Back in the day, Henry Ford II wasn’t crazy about McNamara’s seat-belt obsession. ‘McNamara is selling safety,’ he said, “but Chevrolet is selling cars.’” What does that tell you? The media’s hidden love affair with Ford continues apace.

According to the Detroit News, the Cadivolt is go! Not that the announcement comes as any huge surprise: when has GM ever invested heavily in a new platform and not built a Cadillac version? On the other hand, when was the last time GM built a $40k Chevrolet? More importantly, where does the Caddy version’s price go from there?

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: if you want proof that Ford’s water-walking CEO doesn’t “get” automotive branding, look at Lincoln. The Blue Oval Boyz’ upmarket marque is in total disarray. Lincoln lacks anything approaching an effective brand proposition; it’s burning through tag lines almost as quickly and ineffectively as the industry standard for pitiful performance (Buick). Does it even matter? Lincoln’s line of lackluster products simply aren’t good enough to make it in The Bigs. And then there’s the Medusa-class disaster known as the MKT: a poorly-built, misbegotten machine constructed on Big Al’s watch. Automotive News [sub] deployed no less than three writers to talk to Mulally about languid old Lincoln, AND they spotted him the lazy journalist’s and persnickety PR person’s best friend: the Q&A format. Even so, the result is an extraordinary non-outburst from an executive who believes that combining Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers is a good thing. Check out this exchange:

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If you’re like me, you spent most of the weekend huddled under a blanket, half-watching television and praying for the flu agony to be over. And nobody who watched a considerable amount television this weekend could have avoided the latest flight of heavy-handed ads from Jeep and Chrysler’s new Ram brand. “My Name Is Ram” and the  E.E. Cummings-inspired “i am. Jeep” campaigns are blitzing airwaves across the country as the New, New Chrysler gears up to make its wildly optimistic sales goals. After five months of total silence coming out of bankruptcy, the ads are coming out in earnest, and they’ll be running non-stop in hopes of catching up with the $100 per retail sale ad spend goal for 2009.  Next year, Chrysler’s ad spending will go up to $170 per projected sale, peaking in 2011 at $210 per planned retail sale. And this increase in ad spending appears to explain why Chrysler’s sales projection charts swing wildly upwards after a dismal 2009. After all, if throwing upward of a billion bucks per year won’t change consumer perceptions, what will? Well, besides new product, anyway. There’s many a slip twixt the PowerPoint and the profit.

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As you can see from this screen cap of Chevrolet’s website, the brand’s American Revolution is no more. The ridiculous catchphrase—applied as it was to Korean, Canadian and Mexican imports—has been replaced with . . . nothing. Niente. Nada. The big goose egg. Oh sure, there’s the “May the Best Car Win” tag line lurking beneath the fold, but that’s equally ridiculous. The best car is winning—in the only metric that means anything (sales), and it doesn’t have a bow tie on its snout. Yes, yes, it suits the suits. Just ask the guys and gals who attend GM’s death-by-PowerPoint marketing meetings, where execs who don’t mind the perception gap face . . . nothing. Niente. Nada. (Fritz will get around to the cultural change thing eventually.) Anyway, what’s next?

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Are you seeing a pattern here? Although Olivier Francois is in charge of the most damaged brand in the Chrysler Group (and yes, that’s saying a lot), at least he’s been here before with Fiat’s problem brand Lancia. So it’s no surprise that Francois’s branding video for Chrysler is remarkably similar to a Lancia ad: it projects a kind of sophisticated sexyness, with lots of celebrities, architecture and passionate-sounding classical music. The only real difference is the copy that goes on and on about the good old days when Americans arrived in style. And unlike Ralph Gilles’ Dodge presentation, Francois’ vision of Chrysler’s brand actually works. But vision is only a tiny part of the battle for the Chrysler brand, and the rest is execution. On that front, things aren’t looking quite so good

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