Japanese Big Three Cool to Detroit's Discounts

LOS ANGELES Chrysler hauled out Lee Iacocca and Jason Alexander for a pseudo-Seinfeld parody, ending with a reference to an old Chrysler campaign tagline. Ford went from tough to sentimental, featuring families who would benefit from deeply discounted Fords, Lincolns and Mercurys.But the big three Japanese automakers aren't rising to the bait. Their agencies are in a "wait-and-see" posture regarding any marketing response to Ford's and Chrysler's variations on General Motors' employee-discount program. Campaigns for both Detroit automakers began last week [Adweek Online, July 7].Last week, Toyota Motor Sales hosted a meeting of regional general managers at its Torrance, Calif., headquarters, where the topic was hot. "Yes, we are having very animated discussions about the GM program," said Jim Farley, Toyota vp of marketing. "But we have no plans to change our program, relative to incentives, or our proposals to consumers." Farley said the company's business strategy would continue to use incentives to "fine tune" sales. "[Toyota] may talk about it to death, but they assess the market based on what their business is doing, not what Detroit is doing," said Steve Rabosky, chief creative officer at Publicis Groupe's Saatchi & Saatchi, Torrance. "They are seldom reactive about anything and haven't needed to be. [GM's program] hasn't cut into any of the import's business, and it's a temporary bid at best."Rabosky said that no marketing response was in the offing, either to communicate the long-term value story of Toyota products ("People already know that," he said) or to rib Detroit for me-too-ism. "It's not in Toyota's character to parody the competition," Rabosky said. "And it's not in the mentality of the brand."Larry Postaer, evp and director of creative services at Torrance-based American Honda Motor's agency, independent RPA, Santa Monica, Calif., said Honda had not directed it to respond and suggested that the client would be unwise to be uncharacteristically reactive. "The first guy who did it was clever," Postaer said. "It was extremely catchy, different. And now it's not." Though he admitted that the situation loaned itself to some sort of parody or comedy-spot response, Postaer said such an ad would "probably not [come] from Honda, but from someone in more of a streetfighting mode. This is a gimmick gone wild. The Japanese take a longer view of such things." Nissan North America, Gardena, Calif., was holding the line, too, according to Robert LePlae, president of Nissan's agency, Omnicom's TBWA\Chiat\Day, Playa del Rey, Calif. He said the client has not asked for any marketing response to the GM program, which he characterized as a "strategic tool to clear inventory" that at its most dramatic might cause automakers to jigger incentives on a short-term basis. Regarding an ad response, LePlae echoed the others. "Someone will do that," he predicted. "But it won't be Nissan. We don't do ads that are just about the offer." with Karl Greenberg

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Japanese Big Three Cool to Detroit's Discounts

Gregory Solman

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Gregory Solman