Chrysler Replacing Lancia As Global Brand/World Peace Advocate
See this ad for Lancia and/or world peace? Now check out the first post-bankruptcy Chrysler brand advertisement here. Noticing any similarities? It seems that there’s trouble brewing in the Fiat family, and “Don” Marchionne has strongly suggested that the new boy to the family, Chrysler, could take over some of Lancia’s profile. Automotive News [sub] reports that the Chrysler brand will appear on Lancias (A.K.A rebadging) in many international markets, and that Lancias could become a niche marque.
Autonews posits 2 possibilities. The first possibility is that Lancia is used in limited markets such as Belgium, France and Italy. Particularly Italy. Last year, Lancia sold 103,000 cars, 93,000 of which were sold in Italy. This possibility doesn’t really make sense as last year, in Europe, only 29,000 Chrysler branded cars were sold. So, on the face of it, the Lancia marque has more value than the Chrysler marque. The second possibility is that Lancia is moved to become an upscale brand, within the Chrysler world. Much like Ford in Europe did with the Ghia marque. The problem with this scenario is that, as we established in possibility 1, Italy is still a strong market for Lancia and a move like this would damage the brand. It’s very much like Renault trying to reduce the Nissan badge to a sub-brand with the Renault sphere.
But Mr Marchionne hasn’t committed to anything yet. He is waiting for Chrysler to release the new 300C, Sebring and Voyager minivan (A.K.A the Town and Country) before he starts playing musical marques. “We need to see product, we need to see positioning and based on that we can make a decision,” he said. Too many brands and not enough market to maintain them? Haven’t we been here before….?
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Advertising like this is the height of hyprocisy and cynicism. Sure, let's free all the political prisoners. Then let's end racism, mysogyny, war, and pollution. What a crock of shit coming from the company that used bankruptcy to take the livelihood from dealers' employees in small towns all over America and to dismiss claims of people injured in defective cars built by the "old" Chrysler. This type of insincere ego-stroking and mutual mental masturbation by ad agencies and marketing departments really frosts me. (It is sort of cool to see Gorby in the 300, however, since that ancient sled always did look sort of like a Russian staff car to me.) As a taxpayer I say, stop wasting my money on this nonsense and worry about selling some cars so you can pay me back at least a penny on the dollar that was extorted from me to throw down your rathole.
We don't need Chrysler or Lancia. My market research indicates a need for the Maxwell brand... also Perrier water is good, are phonographs.