THE AUTOEXTREMIST

May 5, 2010

In search of Chevrolet’s soul.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 5/4, 11:30AM) Detroit. Hard on the heels of last week’s column, which had me commenting on the demise of Campbell-Ewald as Chevrolet’s advertising agency – after an uninterrupted run since 1919 - and GM’s ongoing marketing travails, word is filtering out about a new advertising campaign about to make its debut for Chevrolet from its new ad agency, Publicis Groupe SA. Clearly GM’s most important division – and the one most crucial to GM’s future success here and around the globe – Chevrolet is in desperate need of a grand slam, buzz-of-the-moment ad campaign home run on the level of the “Heartbeat of America” campaign, or reaching way back, “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet,” or way, way back, “See the U.S.A. in Your Chevrolet.”

This new advertising campaign will be the first since the tepid “American Revolution” campaign, which never achieved the iconic status of those previous stellar Chevrolet ad efforts - despite the protestations from Chevrolet and Campbell-Ewald executives who insisted that it did - and to say it’s basically all on the line for Chevrolet is the understatement of the year (so far).

I will get to that new campaign in a moment, but I think it’s important to understand the context of Chevrolet – both within GM and as part of the greater American fabric – first.

Chevrolet was never just another car company for General Motors; it was instead the single most dominant and profitable brand in GM’s meticulously crafted empire and the single most dominant brand in the American automobile industry. Which, when you think about it was really saying something because after all, this was an era when our domestic automobile industry controlled upwards of 90 percent of the market, and GM alone commandeered half of that.

In GM’s heyday – roughly the late 50s to the late 70s – when the company basically set the tone for the entire industry dictating (except for a few instances) the tempo and cadence of the business in terms of design, engineering, segmentation, marketing, advertising - even right down to the color palette seen on America’s vehicles - Chevrolet was the straw that stirred the drink, and it just flat dominated the American market.

So when Campbell-Ewald was firing on all cylinders and delivered memorable ad campaigns that fortified Chevrolet’s leadership position, the result was at times magic, with a few of those campaigns becoming part of the zeitgeist of the moment, mirroring the pulse of this nation perfectly.

In 1961, back when “Bonanza” was one of the most popular shows on television by far, Chevrolet was the dominant ad presence on the western soap opera. I still remember vividly when the first episode of the new fall season of “Bonanza” was brought to the screen uninterrupted by commercials, so that the last seven minutes of the hour could be used for one giant launch commercial for the “new” Chevrolets.

No car company dominated the media ad space like Chevrolet during GM’s now long-faded glory days.

The same was true in the mid-70s when the country - which was reeling from more than a decade of relentless political upheaval and social turmoil - seemed to be crying out for a simpler time, when lazy summer days, picnics and baseball could be savored again. The result? “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet” captured the spirit of the nation, with the song becoming all-pervasive on the airwaves all across the country in 1974.

In 1986 it was the “Heartbeat of America,” a campaign driven by a powerful hit song and stunningly captivating visuals. And for one last fleeting moment in time Chevrolet was the media and marketing buzz of the moment.

(“Like A Rock” – the fabulous Chevy truck campaign powered by the Bob Seger song of the same name – was memorable and powerful, too, but since I’m talking about the Chevrolet brand overall in this column I will leave mention of it here. But make no mistake - it was the last great Chevrolet advertising campaign, one that the most recent Chevy car campaign – “American Revolution” – couldn’t hold a candle to.)

But as we well know now, the “Heartbeat” campaign was Chevrolet’s (and GM’s for that matter) last grasp at genuine momentum in this market. By the time the 90s hit, American car-buying consumers had grown tired of the piss-poor quality and the excuses from GM and the rest of the domestic automobile manufacturers, and they started abandoning domestic-sourced automobiles in droves for Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, et al.

Domestic-built trucks still dominated and generated the profits that kept GM, Ford and Chrysler afloat, but the writing was well and truly on the wall, as the long, relentless and inexorable slide downward for the domestics’ market share continued unabated until the total financial meltdown that occurred at the end of 2008 brought two of the three domestic manufacturers to their knees.

Fast forward to today and GM - fortified by newly competitive products and fueled by massive taxpayer funding and the equally critical debt relief brought on as the direct result of its bankruptcy – is now poised to make a serious push in this market.

And what is the one division it must hinge its future on? Chevrolet, of course.

But the question that remains front and center is can Chevrolet create magic again with an ad campaign that will not only resonate with the American consumer public at an emotional level, but will soften the animosity directed at anything and everything to do with GM in some circles because of the bailout?  

This isn’t the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s, and Chevrolet isn’t what it once was by any stretch of the imagination. It doesn’t dominate and except for a few notable exceptions (Corvette, Camaro, Equinox, Silverado and to a much lesser extent Malibu and Traverse) there’s no buzz associated with the brand either.

Is it fair to expect that any one ad campaign can “fix” what ails Chevrolet? I contend that if it’s the right campaign, with the right tone, and the right executional elements, then yes, absolutely.

We see it occur frequently today - fill in the ad campaigns that resonate with you here - when advertising that captures that elusive mix of spot-on strategy, stimulating creativity and flawless execution results in memorable advertising that becomes the buzz of the moment, leaving a favorable impression for a product that endures well beyond the last media buy.

So what are GM – and Chevrolet – hinging their future on when it comes to this new tagline for the brand?

“Excellence for All.”

It pretty much – ahem - rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?

My problem with the new tagline for Chevrolet is that it isn’t an advertising tagline at all, rather, it’s a positioning statement that should have remained in the conference room at the ad agency and been used as the underlying premise for the brand. Traditionally Chevrolet has always been about delivering great value, performance and style for the money - after all, that’s what powered the brand in its heyday. No, it wasn’t a Cadillac, Buick or Oldsmobile – or the rabble-rousing Pontiac - in GM’s Sloan-orchestrated hierarchy, but it was damn impressive for the money. But that was its positioning, not its in-market persona.

I get the fact that “Excellence for All” loosely translates into the idea that Chevrolet’s new products are so damn good that you’ll be amazed at just how good they are for the money, and that this kind of excellence is available to you, the consumer, but is “Excellence for All” something that Chevrolet can hang its hat on and make national hay with? Is “Excellence for All” going to become the nation’s new zeitgeist when it comes to desirable, affordable automobiles, as exemplified by Chevrolet?

How about no? And when you factor in what Hyundai’s doing now, how about not even close?

No, I don’t care how Chevy’s brand minions try to spin it - “Excellence for All” is a non-starter. It smacks of people who don’t understand the brand, don’t understand the history of the brand, and who don’t understand the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that is staring them in the face. You don’t get to re-launch an iconic American brand very often. And when you do it requires a fundamental understanding of that brand – where it has been, where it is now, and where you want to take it – before one creative thought can be put to paper or rendered on a computer screen.

Chevrolet operatives (and GM marketers) have clearly lost touch with the soul of the brand. They don’t understand the privileged opportunity they have at creating new magic for Chevrolet and not only are they clearly not up to the task, they’ve allowed the hand-wringers and the apologists to hijack the brand and lay “Excellence for All” on the table as the best idea there is, and the best it’s ever going to get.

The brand deserves so much better.

And by the way, this is what Campbell-Ewald got thrown under the bus for?

Absolutely appalling.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

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