QUICK IDEA: While the commercial with Bill Murray is receiving accolades Jeep sales are hurting especially the new Gladiator model. Once again an ad agency has conned a client into thinking that an entertaining commercial can sell a product.
I enjoyed the Jeep commercial with Bill Murray but when it comes time for me to look for a new car Jeep is not going to be on my list. Despite the spot, Jeeps are not receiving good reviews online from current owners. Today, if you want a good four-wheel-drive vehicle there are so many better choices.
Ad agencies continue down the path to extinction. They develop spots that don’t sell while patting themselves on the back and traveling to Cannes France to win awards. In the meantime, clients have to heavily discount their products in order to sell products.
Fiat Chrysler posted its first monthly sales decline in a year, with Jeep registering a rare back-to-back drop in deliveries. The company joined Toyota Motor Corp., Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. in trailing analysts’ estimates for February in a Bloomberg News survey. Sales dropped 5.9% for the lucrative Wrangler model, which entered February with inventory piling up at dealerships. Fiat Chrysler’s results wiped out a gain of as much as 1.7%, with the stock dropping 0.1 percent to $14.71 as of 11:34 a.m. Friday in New York.
Of course, the sales drop can be attributed to other factors like models that are out of touch with buyers’ needs but please tell me how a commercial with Bill Murray is going to revive sales?
I’m sure the VP of advertising at Jeep is basking in the glow of the revies for the Murray spot but Jeep dealers are hurting. As one Jeep dealer in Colorado recently said: “people aren’t even thinking about Jeeps anymore when it comes to the four-wheel-drive vehicles”.
There’s little doubt that traditional agencies — the companies that write and produce those brilliant Super Bowl ads and buy the media space to showcase their work — are under fire from several fronts.
- More marketers such as Booking.com are taking their data-driven, transaction-oriented ad buying (e.g., programmatic ads) in-house.
- Some brands, like Chobani and Pepsi, are occasionally doing the same with their creative, or are outsourcing the making of their ads to smaller upstarts.
- Consulting giants like Accenture and Deloitte are investing in the ad world.
- Facebook and Google are raking in a disproportionate amount of new ad spending, and both are building more agency-like functionality.
- Companies like Vice and BuzzFeed are making content for marketers and distributing them.
Advertising can be very effective but only when marketers hold their agencies accountable for sales.
