Chrysler Has A City To Sell To You

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt
Chrysler is proud of the fact that they did NOT release their Super Bowl ad on YouTube like most of the others. “While many sponsors revealed their advertising plans for Sunday’s Super Bowl, the Chrysler brand remained tight lipped to create a stronger impact for the reveal of their new marketing and advertising campaign featuring famous Detroiter, Eminem,” their press release says.Their unprecedented 120 second spot (in the advertising world, that counts as feature-length) supposedly sold the new 2011 Chrysler 200, and ( we gave you fair warning) introduced the brand’s brand new tagline, “Imported from Detroit.”Chrysler should apply for funds from Detroit’s city development agency, because the ad is mainly an ad for Detroit, with the Chrysler 200 as a product placement. Why? As the off speaker says, “Because when it comes to luxury it’s as much about where it’s from as who it’s for.”Chrysler is playing a risky gamble with this ad. The power of the national identity of a brand is overvalued, and often, it turns into a liability. This is why large international brands usually try the utmost to disassociate themselves from where they are from. With everybody knowing that the Italians are calling the shots at Chrysler, the gamble becomes twice as risky.No wonder that Detroit is ecstatic about the ad. “Detroit had a presence on that very important national stage — and a message,” jubilates the Freep. However, the Detroit paper had to concede: “Don’t know if it will sell cars. But Sunday night, it sold a city.”Like any audacious gamble, it could be a win or a lose. Give us your odds.
Bertel Schmitt
Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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  • VanillaDude VanillaDude on Feb 10, 2011

    It is a good ad and a good metaphor. Detroit is to cities what the Sebring is to cars. But there was one very misleading statement about "been to Hell and back" - as far as I am aware, Detroit has been to Hell, but it has not come back. The idea that Detroit has rebounded to what it used to be is an outright lie. Detroit is still an absolute failure and so it Chrysler.

  • LectroByte LectroByte on Feb 11, 2011

    Kunstlercast #143 pretty much ruthlessly deconstructs this commercial. http://www.kunstlercast.com/

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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