Sunday, July 30, 2006

Essay 877


Advertising Age reported Chrysler’s campaign starring Dr. Z failed to stop the automaker’s sales skid.

Additionally, people were not impressed with Chrysler’s messaging on German engineering.

To top things off, 80 percent of potential consumers thought Dr. Z was a fictional character — and thanks to his German accent, a bunch of folks had trouble understanding what the hell he was saying.

Is anyone on Earth surprised to hear this? Anyone at all?

4 comments:

  1. But I can see how this seemed really engaging in the conceptual stage. Do we think it's the execution? Or that it totally lacked any intro or set-up? I feel a little sorry for Dr Z.

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  2. don't feel sorry for dr. z

    feel sorry for the ad agency morons who convinced him to play a poor man's colonel klink in a national campaign — they'll probably catch heat in the long run

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  3. Anonymous11:50 PM

    Going out on a nationlistic limb here, but my hunch is that the Non-American characters aren't going to play with the Kansas crowd these days. Look what did and look what was in the same spot:

    The “Has it got a hemi" redneck.

    Now I'm no expert, but I did drive by a Holiday Inn last night.

    And a Dunkin’ Donuts.

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  4. I don't know. The Geico Gecko seems to do OK. Ditto the Red Stripe Beer guy.

    It isn't about being non-American. It's about being non-entertaining, non-intelligent, non-breakthrough, etc.

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