#Branding

This ad, for the Chevy Camaro, was the most-watched spot during the Super Bowl, pulling in 119,628,000 sets of eyeballs according to the ratings agency Nielsen. A Chevy Cruze ad took second place in the “most-watched” category, and Chrysler’s much-chattered-about 200 spot tied for fourth (with 5 other spots, including one for Bridgestone Tires), with 17.565m viewers. In short, cars and car-related products not only accounted for many of the ads, they managed to snag the time slots where the fewest people were taking bathroom breaks or grabbing more bacon-wrapped buffalo wings. But remember, there’s more to effective advertising than merely drawing eyeballs…

Let’s get something perfectly clear: if you’re spending good money to bring back a legendary Italian sports car brand like DeTomaso without aiming to capture the essence of the photograph above, you’re doing it wrong. Period. If, on the other hand, you’re bringing back the DeTomaso name in order to sell

a premium large crossover, dubbed SLC (sport luxury car) that would be a rival to cars such as the BMW 5-series GT and Lexus RX-450h,

you need to go rethink your entire perspective on life. Or at least find a new business. Tragically, this is exactly what former Fiat marketing executive Gian Mario Rossignolo is doing. DeTomaso. Crossover. DeTomaso. RX450h. DeTomaso. Luxury CUV. Haven’t lost your mind yet? Hit the jump for more claw-your-eyes-out details.

CEO Sergio Marchionne certainly suggested as much in a speech at the NADA convention over the weekend, in which he said

Who knows? In the next two or three years, we could be looking at one entity. It could be based here

From the perspective of the American taxpayer, this would certainly be the favorable outcome. After all, Fiat didn’t put a single Euro into the restructured Chrysler, and national bailouts don’t usually result in the expatriation of the bailed-out firm. But the US Treasury department isn’t the only master Fiat has to serve, and Marchionne’s suggestion that the Fiat-Chrysler alliance has touched off something of a “firestorm.” The Financial Times reports that

Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the [Italian] opposition Democratic party, demanding an explanation from Mr Marchionne said it was unacceptable for “Turin and the country to become a suburb of Detroit”.

Industry Minister Paolo Romani adds [via the Montreal Gazette]

The head of the carmaker must remain in Turin

And with Italian backlash against a possible Detroit headquartering of the Fiat-Chrysler alliance building, Marchionne is backpedaling furiously.

Via designauto.fr, come these first pictures of Fiat’s Chrysler-cum-Lancias, the Thema (Chrysler 300) and Flavia (Chrysler 200). But are these rebadges worthy of the Lancia name? Hit the jump for the context necessary to answer that question…

Though not technically a new debut at this year’s Detroit Auto Show, the “Prius C” concept was probably the most interesting vehicle Toyota showed at Cobo Hall this year. If nothing else, it certainly shows the promise of an expanded Prius brand far better than the “Prius V.” And if there’s a single market where this “baby Prius” can give Toyota’s eco-brand spin-off a boost it would be Europe, where small, efficient cars rule. But, it seems, this is not to be. Autocar reports

The strength of the Japanese yen seems almost certain to keep a production version of Toyota’s near-80mpg hybrid supermini based on the Prius C Concept hatch out of Europe.