Auto Makers Driving Home Safety : But Critics Raise a Yellow Flag on New Emphasis in Advertising

You wouldn’t want to buy the Chevy Corsica pictured in the General Motors advertisement that debuted in national newspapers earlier this month.

Its front end is crumpled, for one thing, and its body is crisscrossed with decidedly unattractive crash test markings. Inside, three unanimated and apparently uninjured dummies stare vacantly into space, while the fourth, the one in the driver’s seat, gazes into an inflated air bag.

In an industry that usually tries to lure customers with images of shiny new products, scenic terrain and enthusiastic (not to mention live) passengers and drivers, conjuring up thoughts of death and destruction might seem a little risky.

But in kicking off a corporate ad campaign last month under the theme “Safety isn’t one thing. It’s everything,” the world’s largest auto maker joined a growing number of its competitors in betting that selling safety will sell cars.

Auto makers attribute the recent boom in safety advertising to technological advances that have enabled them to make driving safer. The advertising blitz, they say, is aimed at educating consumers about the array of new safety devices available to them.

But some industry critics cast a more skeptical eye on the new prominence afforded to safety ads, charging that politics and profits also play a role in the campaigns. Others worry that consumers won’t realize how much more the industry can do to make safer vehicles.

The industry’s newfound interest in peddling safety has been shaped by increasingly safety-conscious consumers--particularly baby boomers turned doting parents. Chrysler says safety has jumped from 11th to second place among car buyers’ priorities in recent years.

“The old bromide is that safety doesn’t sell. We think that’s changed,” said George Pruett, GM’s public affairs director for advertising, explaining the rationale for the company’s first safety-oriented corporate campaign. “We’ve always talked about safety. This just seemed the appropriate time for a stepped-up emphasis.”

But critics say the timing of the GM campaign--which Chairman Robert Stempel believed significant enough to mention in his speech at the company’s annual meeting last month--dovetails neatly with the company’s fierce lobbying efforts against a push in Congress to tighten auto fuel-economy standards.

The industry contends that fuel-efficiency and safety don’t mix, as a rule, because the laws of physics dictate that big cars--which use the most gasoline--are safest.

GM’s Pruett denies any connection between the safety campaign and the auto maker’s virulent opposition to the congressional bill sponsored by Senator Richard Bryan (D-Nev.) that would toughen fuel-economy standards.

“It wasn’t something we were thinking about when we developed this campaign,” Pruett said.

But a safety-conscious corporate image is different from a safety-conscious corporation, says Clarence Ditlow, president of the Washington-based consumer group Center for Auto Safety, a longtime critic of auto firms. Citing the industry’s history of opposition to federal safety regulations, Ditlow maintains that the auto makers changed their tune only upon discovering safety’s lucrative potential.

“The swing towards using safety as a sales tool began in 1990,” Ditlow said, “and they found that it works. They’re making money.”

Making money and making safe vehicles are not mutually exclusive, but critics say that in their haste to make the most of this marketing tool, auto makers have tended to mislead rather than educate consumers.

“There’s a lot of two-faced talking out of both sides of the mouth on this issue,” said David Kiley, a senior writer at the trade publication Adweek. “The Doonesbury strip was a reflection of the truth,” Kiley added, referring to cartoonist Gary Trudeau’s satirical jab at Chrysler’s air bag commercials in his national cartoon strip earlier this year.

Chrysler, recognized as second only to Volvo in effort expended to promote its safety image, caught flak from a variety of critics for the television spot, in which company Chairman Lee A. Iacocca lectures a roomful of board members on the virtues of air bags.

“Some things you wait for. Some things you don’t,” an impassioned Iacocca intones in the widely aired spot. “Minivans with air bags? You don’t wait.”

In the Doonesbury strip, a board member reminds the chairman that he had spent most of the past two decades fighting federal regulations for air bags.

Chrysler ascribes Iacocca’s about-face on the air bag issue to better and more cost-efficient technology.

“He was against it because the technology and reliability wasn’t there,” a Chrysler spokesman said.

Historical revisionism aside, Chrysler can now legitimately claim to have led the industry on air bags since 1988, when the No. 3 U.S. auto maker announced plans to begin installing driver-side air bags as standard equipment on several models. An estimated $200-million investment allowed the company to equip 93% of its 1991 model year cars with air bags.

Whatever the motivation for GM’s new safety campaign, a direct attempt to influence the public’s opinion on fuel-economy legislation began earlier this month with the launch of another safety advertising campaign. It is sponsored by the Coalition for Vehicle Choice, a group of about 200 mostly auto-related organizations--including the Big Three U.S. auto producers--that has pitted itself against the Bryan bill.

The first TV spot of the coalition’s campaign, which will also include print and radio ads, shows footage of a Department of Transportation crash test in which a 4,000-pound car that gets 23.5 miles to the gallon practically destroys a more fuel-efficient, 41-m.p.g., 2,300-pound car.

The slogan, a statement by Administrator Jerry Curry of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency that regulates auto safety, reads: “The laws of physics cannot be legislated away.”

Ditlow argues that it is possible to dispute the auto industry’s claims about the relationship between fuel economy and safety without challenging the laws of physics.

“It is clear the industry is using safety as a smoke screen,” Ditlow said. “Today they’re saving lives and making profits by selling air bags, something they could have done 20 years ago. Now they should use technology to save gas and save lives and make profits.”

Few dispute that the safety features Chrysler, GM and others tout in their ads--anti-lock brakes, air bags, traction control--have, as GM puts it, “helped reduce highway injuries and fatalities all over the world.” NHTSA also gives auto makers partial credit for the 40% drop in the traffic fatality rate between 1974 and 1990.

What worries Steve Oesch, general counsel at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, is that safety advertising will lull consumers into believing that the auto makers have done all they can to make vehicles safer. Federal regulations and consumer demand has pushed the auto industry to develop safer vehicles, said Oesch, and both pressures need to continue to keep the auto makers working on safety.

“While there has been substantial progress,” Oesch said, “there still is a need to move forward on other areas, to try to make sure as much safety as possible is built into every car.”