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Title: The Pickup Truck of Patriots
Source:
NYT
URL Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/26/b ... siness&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Published: Sep 27, 2006
Author: NYT
Post Date: 2006-09-27 18:32:23 by Morgana le Fay
Keywords: None
Views: 129
Comments: 3
DETROIT, Sept. 25 — When the new Chevrolet Silverado pickups begin rolling out of factories this fall, they will have stronger frames, more fuel-efficient engines and a metaphorical American flag in the rear window. Starting this weekend, General Motors will run ads that tap into patriotism. The same brand that likened itself to baseball, hot dogs and apple pie in commercials in the 1970’s now hopes to kindle the same feelings by positioning the Silverado as America’s truck. No longer is the Silverado “like a rock,” as Bob Seger insisted for years. Chevy has enlisted singer John Mellencamp, whose soon-to-be-released anthem “Our Country” will be the background of the new campaign. The first of the ads is filled with images of historic moments in recent American history — Rosa Parks on the bus, Martin Luther King speaking, the aftermath of Sept. 11, Hurricane Katrina’s devastation — and ends with the tagline: “This is our country. This is our truck.” To be sure, the campaign includes the obligatory boasts of brute strength and toughness. But the new ads show that in an increasingly crowded market, G.M. feels the need to connect with truck lovers in a more emotional way. “Our goal is to own the hearts of the American pickup buyer,” said Kim Kosak, G.M.’s general director of advertising and sales promotions. Another goal — and a more pressing one — is to ward off Japanese rivals who have made inroads in the full-size pickup truck market, the last bastion of the American automakers. This fall, Toyota is introducing a retooled version of its Tundra pickup, a model seen as a significant threat to the segment’s long-established leaders, the Silverado, the top-selling model at G.M., and the F-150, the top seller at Ford. Pickups are critical to the turnaround efforts at both G.M. and the Ford Motor Company, not only because of their popularity but because the profit margins they carry are many times those of passenger cars. “G.M.’s full-size pickup line is the single largest contributor to the company’s profitability,” said John Casesa, an automotive analyst and managing partner of Casesa Strategic Advisers in New York. “It’s the backbone of the company’s North American business. It makes a real difference if sales are up or down 5 percent.” Detroit’s automakers have long encouraged consumers to “buy American,” perhaps most famously through Chrysler’s gregarious former chairman, Lee Iacocca. The Big Three carmakers’ falling market share may be a sign that the buy American sentiment is fading. But pickup buyers are different from other car shoppers. A majority of trucks are purchased to be used on the job, and their drivers cannot easily downsize to more fuel-efficient cars to follow the example of people who abandoned sport utility vehicles when gasoline prices rose to $3 a gallon. Urging consumers to buy American “has never worked in any other segment of the vehicle market, so ultimately I don’t know that it will work here,” Mr. Casesa said. “But if there’s any segment in which the American appeal would work, this is it.” Foreign carmakers have been less successful at selling trucks because pickups are largely unpopular outside the United States, and satisfaction with American trucks remains high. G.M. maintains that market research it conducted in developing its new campaign showed there is a strong sentiment toward American-made trucks, even in cities on the East and West Coasts where foreign cars are most common. “They want to buy an American truck, because they feel Americans still make better pickups than anyone on the market, because they consider us the truck experts,” Ms. Kosak said. Gary Pascoe, executive vice president of Campbell-Ewald, the agency behind the Silverado campaign, said: “No other country can build this truck — not Korea, not Japan, not Germany. It is a pure reflection of the American experience.” Patriotic themes are not new for G.M., which offered a “Keep America Rolling” promotion in the months after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Chevy has at various times claimed to be “an American revolution” and “the heartbeat of America” since its “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” ads, which were revived briefly this past summer. Similar themes can be seen at Ford, which uses “Red, White and Bold” as a rallying cry for its employees and has declared itself to be “America’s car company.” G.M.’s attempt to make the Silverado the country’s unofficial pickup will not go unchallenged by Ford, whose F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the United States for 30 years. “Our strategy is to act like leaders and not posture about leadership,” said a Ford spokesman, Jim Cain. “That means an intense focus on the customer, regular investment in the product and innovation. I think our track record on all those fronts speaks for itself.” In 2005, Ford sold about 901,000 F-150’s to Chevy’s 706,000 Silverados. G.M. also sold 229,000 of its GMC Sierra, a more luxurious version of the Silverado. The new Silverado and Sierra are scheduled to arrive at dealerships next month. They will be shown publicly for the first time Wednesday at the State Fair of Texas. (As proof of how important Texas is for pickup sales, the campaign will feature a television spot created specifically to run in Texas.) The first national television spot is scheduled to run this Saturday during ABC’s college football broadcasts. Chevy is also sponsoring NBC’s Sunday night N.F.L. broadcast with a 90-second introduction asserting that the Silverado is as uniquely American as football. More ads will begin running Oct. 21, during the first game of the World Series. Those spots continue the “Our Country, Our Truck” theme, showing the truck’s target buyers — active men — at work and at play. “This is our breakfast,” one spot says as a forklift snares piles of lumber. “This is our chat room,” it continues as two men relax at a rural coffee shop. A separate parallel campaign aimed at Hispanic audiences will run simultaneously, although G.M. did not reveal specifics Monday. G.M.’s flag-waving Silverado campaign contrasts sharply with another recent ad blitz from one of its competitors. The Chrysler Group, a division of DaimlerChrysler, highlighted its German ties in a series of quirky, endlessly repeated spots featuring the company’s chief executive, Dieter Zetsche, under the nickname “Dr. Z.” Those ads were pulled after they failed to reach sales goals, although the company said they could return someday.
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#1. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
They will sell an *ssload of these down south.
I hope that GMC has the very good sense not to do this shit to their rear window, or, gives us a discount if we choose to have just plain glass, and pass the flag to some bot out there.
I would be more inclined to buy another Silverado if GM shut down all its China plants and only ran Spanish ads in countries that speak Spanish. I love my Chevy, but it breaks my heart what GM is doing nowadays.
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#2. To: who knows what evil (#1)
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.
#3. To: Morgana le Fay (#0)
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