Olds Is NOT ‘Not Your Father’s’ Car Any More

Oldsmobile’s highly touted “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” ad campaign has run its course and will be phased out, a company executive says.

“We will not be using it too much,” Mike Losh, general manager of the Oldsmobile Division of General Motors Corp., said Wednesday.

“We’re going to be doing more talking about the ‘new generation of Olds,’ ” he said. “It’s time to move on and change and evolve.”

The “father” advertisement was an ill-conceived project from the start, said analyst Thomas O’Grady of Integrated Automotive Resources Inc. of Wayne, Pa.

“It made a lot of statements that lacked the ability to sell the cars,” he said. “It was an ad campaign that had to go.”

O’Grady said the campaign made the mistake of targeting car buyers around 40 years old, who usually don’t consider buying Oldsmobiles, while alienating the traditional, older Oldsmobile buyers by saying the car is not for them.

Oldsmobile sales suffered in 1989. Through Dec. 20, the division’s sales were running 15.4% behind last year’s pace.

Oldsmobile officials declined to say how much was spent on the campaign, but observers speculated that it probably was an expensive one. Celebrities and their offspring are used in the ads.

In one, former Beatle Ringo Starr is chased by a group of middle-aged women, slides down a banquet table, out a window and into the passenger seat of an Oldsmobile driven by his daughter, Lee.

Part of Oldsmobile’s new image actually is a throwback to a previous focus--trucks.

Losh on Wednesday showed off the Oldsmobile Bravada, a four-door sport-utility vehicle scheduled for production in late summer for the 1991 model year.