Jon Coifman's Blog
Range Rover: Coming Soon to a Disaster Near You
June 22, 2007
Posted by Jon Coifman in Green Enterprise , Moving Beyond Oil
This one will go down in the corporate PRrecord books.
As noticed in the trade press by our friends over at Consumerist, somebody at Range Rover -- a Ford Motor Company brand -- thought it would be a good idea to stage a commercial for the British SUV on location at the sites of actual, real-life natural disasters.
Then they got the even better notion to talk about it to the media.
What an opportunity to show the luxury truck as a rescue vehicle. Folks behind it all want the campaign "to appeal to old-school Discovery drivers as well as to soccer moms who want to know that their SUV is more than a glorified grocery wagon."
Truck porn, in other words, filmed in the muck and mud of an actual flooded town. And like regular porn, it's a fantasy fetish.
The marketing plan carries a step further one by the good people at General Motors showing donated Hummers in action for the Red Cross (which does not, by the way, actually rescue people). Owners there are allowed to sign up to volunteer to drive their new truck through hellfire and floodwaters to save stranded grannies.
You can almost hear Hummer hungry husbands all across America using this line in hope that their wife will let them buy one.
Crass and evil, yes. But damn good marketing. Most of it low profile and by direct mail.
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- Jon Coifman
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