Detroit Wraps New Cars in Stars and Stripes

The Detroit Auto Show runs this week, and the Big Three American car makers are showing off their wares. The pickup trucks that have done so well in the past are seeing sales slack off. Pickup sales were off 6% in 2007, while overall US car sales were down just 3%. To entice more people who don’t need them to buy trucks, Detroit is not just putting bells and whistles on their vehicles, they are wrapping them up in patriotic marketing scams.

Tom Appel, editor of Consumer Guide Automotive, told CNN, “You can’t pull commercial sales ahead. Companies will buy a new truck when it makes financial sense to do so, and commercial sales of light duty trucks tend to coincide with the housing market. But for the average car buyer a vehicle purchase is more elastic, more emotional, so you can lure them in.”

So, Ford showcased its F-150, according to CNN, “flanked by all-American cultural icons including country singer Toby Keith, professional bull rider Justin McBride and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Rick Crawford.” This journal has nothing against any of those three gentlemen, but precisely why they should feature in a marketing effort for a pickup truck can only be explained by an appeal to raw emotion.

Not to be outdone, “Chrysler went one better, handing out Dodge-brand beef jerky and introducing its revamped Ram pickup with a posse of bull-whipping cowboys and driving a herd of 120 cattle past a corral of shivering journalists outside Detroit’s Cobo Center.” One is prepared to bet that the 120 cattle left quite an impression on the ground, but nothing could be more appropriate.

The fact is that the pickup truck is out of fashion with people who use car purchases as fashion statements. Gasoline is too expensive. Karl Brauer, editor in chief at automotive research site Edmunds.com said, “For years, people who didn’t really need trucks were buying them as fashion statements, but now with gas prices rising those buyers are leaving the market, wondering why they’re going to pay so much money for trucks and have to pay for the extra gas needed to run them. So you’re seeing the big manufacturers trying to lure them back, focusing on functionality, and adding cool, hip fashion statements, and better gas mileage.” More of the better gas mileage, less of NASCAR and cattle droppings, and maybe Toyota wouldn’t be the biggest auto company in the world.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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