GM Taking an Earthy Approach to Saturn TV Ads
Saturn is about to come down to Earth.
The much ballyhooed new compact car line that General Motors spent up to $3 billion to create hits the showrooms late next month. But preceding it will be a carefully crafted ad campaign that company officials have refused to comment on--let alone reveal--until now.
Most of the ads closely link the cars to the folks who build them. A string of six 60-second TV commercials that will begin to air next week generally attempt to portray a somewhat patriotic and sentimental view of the company through the eyes of its employees and their families.
The TV spots include one with a 10-year-old boy and his dog who are uprooted from a Midwest city when “Dad” gets hired by Saturn. Although hesitant about the move at first, the boy is eventually won over when he lands a new paper route. Of course, his dog has a hard time adjusting to living in a town with cows in the pasture.
Another ad, with teamwork as a theme, shows a Saturn United Auto Worker member jetting to foreign countries along with a Saturn executive. And there’s even one earthy, 90-second spot about launch day at the sprawling Saturn factory in Spring Hill, Tenn., that features one employee who puts it all into perspective: “No one else in the world has done this--not since the Model T.”
Behind all this is GM’s make-or-break efforts to take on Japanese auto importers on American turf. Saturn’s three compact cars, which will sell for $10,000 to $12,000, won’t show up in the first set of TV commercials, which kick off Oct. 2. Saturn sheet metal will begin to get air time about three weeks later.
And lookie-loos can eventually get in-person peeps at the cars at 116 Saturn dealer showrooms nationwide. Several dozen dealers will be opening on Oct. 25, including seven in the Southland.
So intergal is California to the success of Saturn, that GM decided to first introduce it here, along with a few other key markets, before it is sold nationwide. “California is a bellwether state,” said Thomas W. Shaver, director of consumer marketing. “If we can’t compete here, we can’t compete.”
Meanwhile, no where in any of the ads is the Saturn name linked with its parent, General Motors. “Close association with any domestic make is not necessarily a plus with an import-committed buyer,” explained Don Hudler, vice president of sales, service and marketing at Saturn. Adds Shaver: “We want the consumer to think of Saturn as a new car company.”
New? General Motors has already invested up to eight years in the project. But from the perspective of the car-buying public, the Saturn name is virtually unknown. One recent survey revealed that only 2% of the general public is now familiar with the Saturn nameplate. That’s one reason why the initial campaign is so critical.
“There is considerable risk if GM fails with Saturn,” said John J. Ferron, partner at the Agoura Hills automotive research firm, J. D. Power & Associates. “Then, car buyers will believe that things can’t be done right in America. And that could carry over to the other American car makers.”
The campaign will also feature a massive billboard promotion that rivals some of the largest unleashed in the state. Saturn has purchased ad space on well over 500 billboards statewide. Among the billboard slogans--which all show large photos of the cars--is this one: “You can’t buy a newer car.”
Print advertising, which began to appear earlier this month, features the slogan, “A different kind of company. A different kind of car.” The print ads also feature homey profiles of individual Saturn employees, including one woman who assembles doors on the cars. She says: “You can stop the production line if that’s what it takes to get something right.”
Getting it right appears to be a veritable obsession at Saturn. “Our own expectations are so damn high,” said Hudler, “that if someone knocks over a salt shaker at Saturn, we count the grains of salt.”
Some say this is precisely the attitude Saturn has to take. “Saturn must make sure that every customer is satisfied beyond their expectations,” said J. D. Power’s Ferron. “On the line is the perception of GM’s ability to create a new product with world-class quality.”
Although Ferron is convinced that Saturn “will be a success in the marketplace,” he adds, “whether or not it will actually make money for GM is another question.” J. D. Power forecasts Saturn’s 1991 calendar year sales of 115,000 units. But Saturn executives declined to release sales projections. Skeptics think they know why.
“What do you do if you have a nothing product being introduced in an already crowded marketplace?” posed Jim Hillson, vice president of Phase One Advertising Analysis, a Los Angeles research firm that specializes in studying automotive advertising. “Instead of talking about the car, you create ads that show some kid who is glad his dad has found work. That may be likeable advertising, but the question in my mind is: So what?”
Well, the agency behind the ads isn’t surprised at the early criticism. “We’ll naturally get some criticism,” said Hal Riney, chairman of Hal Riney & Partners. “But we wanted to make sure this car is perceived differently from others. The people we’d most like to see buy these cars are the skeptics.”
Riney’s San Francisco-based agency has labored on the estimated $100-million ad campaign for nearly two years. The agency, perhaps best-known for the folksy Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler ads it created, has even pieced together a half hour “infomercial” on Saturn that it will try to pass along as something more akin to a documentary on some independent TV stations.
None of the TV advertisements feature jingles--an oddity for a car company. And although the ads use actors in most of the roles, their parts are based primarily on interviews with hundreds of Saturn employees.
“The way to stand out is to speak to people in respectful terms,” said Patrick Sherwood, senior vice president at Riney, who oversees the Saturn business. “What people remember is a good idea--not a good jingle.”
