Fiat Pitches to Gen Y and Elders With Short Memories

LOS ANGELES – Fiat fled the U.S. market with its tail between its legs in 1984 amid poor sales and owner complaints its cars seemed to spend more time in repair shops than on the road.

The Italian brand returned in 2011 with better-quality products: first the 2-door Fiat 500 and then variations thereof, such as a convertible, 4-door 500L and an Abarth tuner-model.

Casey Hurbis sees much of his marketing work as appealing to consumers who weren’t around during the bad old days, or at least don’t recall them.

“Baby boomers remember Fiat leaving the U.S., but Generation X and Y don’t,” says Fiat North America’s marketing chief. “I’m 41 years old, and I don’t remember Fiat.”

Nearly three decades’ passing can make a difference. The brand’s U.S. return, a result of the Chrysler-Fiat hookup, came with “a lot of buzz and excitement,” Hurbis says. It’s his job to keep that going.

Part of Fiat’s advertising includes quirky and sometimes mildly naughty TV spots. Hollywood bad boy Charlie Sheen appeared in one. But a more subtle approach is taken elsewhere, particularly on social media.

There, the brand uses storytelling, a primordial practice with modern marketing advantages.

“Storytelling is one of the oldest activities of mankind,” Hurbis says at a recent Automotive Social Media Summit here. “It is important that storytelling doesn’t become story yelling. So we don’t blast out information.”

Fiat now is shifting to a more complicated technique called storyscaping “in which the brand and consumer can create a shared story,” Hurbis says. “Social (media) plays a crucial enabling role.”

It’s an attempt to meld shared values and experiences. Think of it as brand strategy meeting customer experiences. “You take it from a big stage to social media,” he says.

Fiat wants its dealers to be part of the storyscaping effort. The brand built a retailing network of more than 200 dealerships, dubbed “studios.” The largest is in Austin, TX, “literally in a (shopping) mall,” Hurbis says.

More than 90% of Fiat franchises went to Chrysler dealers, many of whom were not accustomed to selling the likes of zippy little Italian cars.

“The dealers were so used to Chrysler, we had to work with them closely on how to market the Fiat differently,” Hurbis says. “For the first six months, many of them ran their Fiat stores like Chrysler stores.”

Fiat urges dealers to work with their local ad agencies to get the most from social media by using it correctly and making sure the right people oversee it rather than, say, a school kid working part-time at the local dealership.

After a slow start upon returning to the U.S., Fiat sold 43,772 vehicles in 2012, according to WardsAuto data. It has sold 32,742 units through September, 0.3% of overall market share. Many buyers traded in C- and D-segment cars. “We hadn’t expected that,” Hurbis says.

He notes that during the brand’s problem-prone first U.S. go-around, vehicle quality was so bad people joked that Fiat stood for “Fix It Again Tony.”

“Boomers used to say that. I don’t want to hear Generation Y say it.”

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