Dodge: Refresh and Market Like Hell
Dodge brand boss Ralph Gilles has made his presentation on the future of the Ram-head brand. First up: it’s not the Ram-head brand anymore. Beginning next year, Dodge will be represented by the word “Dodge” in black with red accents. According to Gilles, the de-Ramification of Dodge was due to the fact that trucks were dominating brand perceptions. “Mojo” seems to be Dodge’s new buzzword du jour, along with the tagline cool × fun=Dodge. In addition, Dodge will be getting away from the “base, mid, high” trim level ladder to a “lifestyle-based” trim level system. In the future, Dodges will be available in the following trims: “sweet and simple,” “fun and practical,” “uptown luxury,” “thrill seeker,” and “cool extroverted.”
These trim levels will debut with the revamped Caliber interior, and a few slides indicate how this will be executed (comparison shots coming in a separate post). The Avenger and Journey will be the next models to be refreshed in the new marketing-mad mold, with an “even more dramatic” revamp of the Caravan to follow. The substance of these revamps amounts to new interiors, refreshed exteriors and “improved NVH, comfort, convenience and performance.” Only the Caravan will receive new engines.
Further down the road, there’s a new Charger and a seven-passenger CUV formerly known as the Durango. By 2012, new Fiat-based products (C, D segment sedans, B segment hatch), but in the meantime, Dodge will have to rely on new interiors, refreshed exteriors and a lot of marketing. That’s not much to go on for the next several years.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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50merc wrote: Oh, say, what was the old plan? I assume it called for shoddy, noisy, uneconomical and unreliable cars with crappy interiors. If it was, they executed perfectly!