#Branding

The need to expand automotive brands while improving fuel economy is driving automakers to some interesting lengths of late. From GM future concepts that have more in common with a Segway than a Cruze, to Honda’s U-3X and Chrysler’s ill-fated PeaPod, automakers are sending strong hints that the future will be smaller and decidedly less car-like. And MINI and Smart recently took this trend to its logical conclusion, each announcing that they would build (or, more precisely, re-brand) scooters… or as they call them, “alternative mobility concepts.” Which raises the question: what’s a scooter brand to do? Well, Piaggio, maker of the Vespa and other scooter-based “alternative mobility concepts” isn’t going to just drone off into that good night, and it’s fighting back by creating an “alternative” to its core scooter products: a four wheeled car-like “mobility concept.”

Well, there’s nothing quite like being wrong, is there? Exactly a week ago I registered my (somewhat hesitant) support for Chevy’s new tagline, “Chevy Runs Deep,” and though I still believe that the tagline itself is better than anything else GM’s marketers have dreamed up in a while, I probably should have waited for the brand’s ads to come up out before weighing in. After all, any good (or good enough) idea is only as good as its execution… and these ads really don’t seem to move the game past some of Chevrolet’s previous cornball ad efforts. The main ad in the series (above) is as bland as an Impala’s interior, and does nothing to inspire respect for Chevy in contemporary (read: post-bailout) terms. Can “the strength of the nation” be found in every Chevrolet? If so, does that strength refer to something other than the government money that kept Chevrolet from the scrapheap of history? Instead of inspiring a bold approach, it seems that the “Don’t call it Chevy” moment simply pushed Chevy’s advertising back into gauzy pseudo-patriotism of its recent past. But don’t take it from me… hit the jump for a sampling of the latest Chevy Runs Deep ads.

Given that European luxury brands have generally had their way with Detroit-based competitors in the US market, it should come as no surprise that Cadillac has failed to make any appreciable headway in the European market. The brand has been launched and re-launched in Europe four times in the last twelve years, according to Autocar, and its latest relaunch was supposed to boost sales to 20,000 per year by 2010. Despite that ambitious goal, Cadillac has fallen flat with European buyers, having moved about 1,300 units this year. As a result, the latest re-launch of Cadillac has been accompanied by dramatically scaled-back expectations: 2,500 units per year within the next “several” years (Cadillac expects the new ATS to make up about 1,500 units of this volume). Only limited numbers of CTS sedans and wagons will be converted to right-hand drive for the UK, and diesel engines for the CTS range are on hold. But even with a more modest approach to Europe, Cadillac is widely expected to keep struggling in Europe. After all, Lexus spent some $2.8b attacking the European luxury market, but sales which peaked at 60k in 2007 have retreated to a mere 30k units. As Cadillac gets stuck into its fourth re-launch, analyst Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer is not optimistic

I had the pleasure of spending part of a dinner at last week’s Volt press launch chatting with GM’s marketing honcho Joel Ewanick, better known for his work as “marketer of the year” at Hyundai. Ewanick’s a confident, engaging guy, and when the “Don’t Call It Chevy” mini-embroglio came up over desert, his eyes took on a mischievous twinkle. As other GM communications and PR staff recounted their stories of the 24-hour madness that followed the release of a memo which indicated that the term “Chevy” was no longer a welcome marketing feature, it became clear that neither Ewanick nor any of his staff had any regrets about accidentally launching a full-blown public debate over the value of the term Chevy. The very debate, it seems, reconnected the brand that had tried everything marketing-wise with its hidden core: consumers care enough about Chevrolet to have a popular and affectionate nickname for it. And what started as an unnecessary PR blunder seems to have given birth to Chevrolet’s newest marketing tagline: Chevy Runs Deep. Or, as Chevy’s ad man Jeff Goodby puts it

Fiat could do more if it could cut off Italy

Having been handed a bankruptcy-rinsed Chrysler by the American government, Fiat’s Canadian-born CEO Sergio Marchionne is beginning to see Italy as nothing more than aging, uncompetitive factories and troublesome unions. And now he’s not just telling the Italian media that not only would Fiat be better off without the country that birthed it. According to Reuters

The CEO added that not a single euro of the 2 billion euros ($2.8 billion) of trading profit that Fiat is targeting for 2010 will come from Italy, where all Fiat car passenger plants are loss-making.

The funny part: Chrysler still holds a value of precisely zero dollars on Fiat’s balance book. And with the Fiat and Alfa-Romeo brands headed to the US, Italian-ness is still an important element of Fiat’s identity. But until Marchionne’s Chrysler revival and Italian invasion take hold stateside, and as long as mother Italia is a drain on its resources, Fiat might be best described as a Brazilian company.

Italian speakers can enjoy Marhionne’s interview here.

Speaking of confused advertising directions, BMW and its US-market ad agency GSD&M Idea City have parted ways according to Automotive News [sub]. GSD&M was responsible for the poorly-received “Joy” campaign, which BMW had adopted as a global campaign. And according to the report, BMW didn’t call off the relationship. The ad team pulled the plug because

Relationships are no longer strong with the marketing team, particularly in the wake of [BMW USA marketing boss Jack] Pitney’s death; the agency wasn’t making enough money on the account; and there wasn’t an opportunity to do the kind of work the agency had hoped to undertake.

Here’s hoping a new team helps BMW get its advertising mojo back. With Cadillac’s CTS-V going after the German sports sedan jugular with one of the best ads of the year, and luxury competition heating up in the US market, this is not a moment to get caught napping.

As we’ve noted before, Hyundai and Kia have been quick to exploit the weakness of the domestic auto industry by advertising their American-made cars as American-made cars. Now, they’re taking the attack to a whole new level, as Hyundai USA President John Krafcik tells CNN Money that his brand will build 80 percent of its vehicles in the United States by next year. If the Korean brand can actually achieve that goal, it would make Hyundai’s lineup the most American-built full line on the market. And though he insists that Hyundai doesn’t make decisions about production based on PR, Krafcik can’t help but twist the knife, saying

I’m going to build my three best selling cars in the US. Ford builds its best selling car in Mexico.

Oh snap!

Scientific studies are all well and good, but sometimes the simplest studies can provide the most fascinating insights. Take, for example, the recent series at Autosavant entitled “ Brand Awareness? It’s Elementary” (part two here). The study was inspired by a simple question: if you ask kids to name their favorite car, what kind of results will you get? Their answers reflect not only the power of automotive brands in popular culture, but also the basic level of automotive competency of the next generation of gearheads. Somewhat shockingly, not a single kid appears to have answered “ Bumblebee.”

Built on GM’s “Theta Premium” chassis alongside its Cadillac SRX sister in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico, the Saab 9-4X crossover is less than completely Swedish but more than just a rebadged SRX. Specifically, at a base curb weight of 4,431 lbs (with GM’s 3 liter V6 driving the front wheels), it’s over 200 lbs more crossover than a base SRX.