Auburn Hills’ FCA U.S. is foregoing television Super Bowl ads this weekend in favor of what it’s calling a “Big Game Blitz” strategy of advertising on digital and social media channels.
The automaker this week debuted seven online commercials the final two of which – the Ram brand’s “Roll Rams Roll” and “4th Quarter Fight” – launched today. The seven videos featured Dodge, Jeep, and Ram, targeting users of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
“The teams that get to the big game do it by breaking through,” says Olivier Francois, chief marketing officer of FCA US. “By breaking out. By making big plays at the right time and taking calculated chances. We’re no different.
“This year, we will exclusively use social and digital (media) to showcase our commercials,” he continues. “We decided to explore innovative ways to ride the wave of highly engaged viewers, during the one time of the year when the commercials are fun and everybody is talking about them. With this new approach, we are able to engage with the audience through more creative executions than ever before leading up to this Sunday night.
“We feel like the football teams who must constantly change their strategy to make it to the Sunday night’s match-up. But unlike them, we don’t need to be in the big game to change the game.”
In addition to releasing its final two online commercials, FCA today reported its January sales rose 2 percent to 136,082 vehicles compared with sales of 132,803 vehicles in January 2018.
Ram sales in the first month of 2019 rose 24 percent to 39,649 vehicles with pickup truck sales jumping 19 percent to 34,889 units.
While Jeep’s Wrangler and Compass set January records with sales of 13,024 and 10,298 units respectively, overall Jeep sales dipped 2 percent to 58,401 vehicles. The slight slide, according to the company, was due to extreme weather in the Midwest and Northeast.
Dodge sales fell 2 percent to 27,077 vehicles, Chrysler sales fell 14 percent to 9,054, Fiat sales dropped 39 percent to 751 units, and Alfa Romeo sales slid 30 percent to 1,150 units.
“In spite of some frigid January weather, we remain bullish on 2019 given the continued underlying strength of the US economy,” says Reid Bigland, head of U.S. sales for FCA. “We expect a good cadence of new product throughout the year led by our Ram heavy-duty pickup trucks and Jeep Gladiator midsize truck in the first half of this year.”
Facebook Comments