Revamped Dodge Marketing Strategy: More NASCAR

DURHAM, NC – The new marketing chief at Dodge says the brand will lean more heavily on its connection with racing to build greater consumer awareness of its new models.

Chrysler Group shook up the division’s marketing unit in May when it named 30-year Chrysler veteran Michael J. Accavitti as its marketing director and moved Thomas J. Loveless from that position to director-U.S. retail and fleet volume planning. Loveless subsequently left Chrysler.

The auto maker also consolidated its motor sports marketing activity, as well as initiatives related to the company’s SRT performance engineering group, under Accavitti.

Accavitti says the new structure more closely aligns the Dodge brand with motor sports, particularly its participation in the NASCAR series. NASCAR ranks as the nation’s No.1 spectator sport and the No.2 most-watched sporting broadcast and counts about 75 million fans, the racing group says.

“Not every Dodge customer cares about NASCAR or the fact that we even race, but a lot do, and we weren’t sufficiently leveraging (that) relationship,” Accavitti tells Ward’s here during a media backgrounder for the ’08 Viper.

For example, just weeks after the consolidation, the brand released two new television commercials featuring Dodge NASCAR drivers Juan Pablo Montoya and Kasey Kahne in racing gear and behind the wheels of production versions of the Dodge Charger and Avenger. Both cars participate in the NASCAR series.

But the 30-second spots portray the drivers in everyday situations – commuting to work in one ad and opting not to burn out from a stoplight in front of a police cruiser in the second – and they run before the general market, as well as race audiences.

Dodge drivers introduce Avenger at NASCAR competition.

“We were able to have some fun with these drivers and demonstrate the good looks and power of the Dodge Charger and Avenger,” Accavitti notes. BBDO-Detroit created the ads.

The brand also will increase the number of what Accavitti calls “track activations,” events during which Dodge joins with local dealers to give race fans a chance to touch, feel and sit in new products like the Charger, Avenger, Caliber and Nitro.

For instance, Dodge will act as presenting sponsor for the first-ever NASCAR event in Canada, a Busch series race Aug. 3-4 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

The country’s Dodge dealer organization will sponsor a car driven by local racing hero Patrick Carpentier. Company officials say a massive infield display with products and interactive games will serve as a centerpiece for the event.

“A lot of people don’t know that we have these cars,” Accavitti says. “(But) these are all new nameplates that we’ve launched over the last two years and it takes awhile for that to sink into the population. That’s the challenge we have.”

Consumers aren’t entirely oblivious to the revamped lineup. In fact, the Dodge Avenger helped boost June car deliveries at the auto maker by 50% compared with the same period last year, according to Ward’s data.

[email protected]