Are You Winning?

I was very amused to notice a story online last week about Charlie Sheen being signed to endorse the newest version of the Fiat 500 in the company’s next television commercial. Regular readers of this space (assuming that there are any) will recall my post some time ago regarding the Jennifer Lopez spot for this same vehicle, and the scandal that erupted when it came out that the star of the ad had never actually driven a Fiat 500, having filmed her part of the commercial on a soundstage in California while a look-alike drove the car in New York City. It doesn’t seem like that’s going to be a problem this time – according to the CNN Money site the Sheen ad was filmed on a set from the beginning, and doesn’t attempt to present the footage as anything other than an amusing bit of television – but even so, I have to wonder if this particular approach is actually a good idea…

The problem with the Fiat 500 series is that very small cars have never sold that well in the United States, where our love affair with huge, gas-guzzling machines has been very well documented. You can attempt to sell these vehicles on the basis of fuel economy and its attendant savings of both money and the environment, or you can emphasize their convenience, engineering and manufacturing quality, and unexpected capacity and utility, but most of the Fiat’s competitors are already doing that. Fiat will therefore have to overcome the first-mover advantage Toyota has secured for the Prius and BMW has gotten for the Mini, while at the same time dealing with the company’s horrible reputation in the United States, where its product are widely believed to have the mechanical reliability of a two-dollar supercomputer. This is certainly possible – Toyota once had the same sort of reputation in the U.S., and they appear to have gotten over it – but it’s going to take more than just clever positioning of the product, as the people behind the Smart car could already tell them…

Fiat is trying to establish a new image for the tiny car by hiring a celebrity whom they hope will be considered “edgy” and “fun” by people in the car’s target demographic; the implication being both that the car will remind you of Charlie and also that if you drive it you too can be edgy and fun, just like Charlie. They’ve also been working on the old automobile marketing trick of getting the viewer to associate the car with an attractive woman – in this case by using a spot in which an actual woman turns into a Fiat. But even if you like the idea of your car turning into a celebrity (or being a celebrity), I’m not sure if this is the one you would choose. Personally, if I’m going to purchase a car on the basis of its resemblance to a celebrity, I’d be inclined to select a celebrity who is somewhat less likely to accidentally drive the car off of a cliff…

Of course, that’s kind of the point – unlike the previous ad spot, Fiat isn’t asking you to take the Charlie Sheen ad seriously. You already know that it’s somewhat unlikely that a well-known actor drives a subcompact car in the first place, and even if he did he probably wouldn’t be driving it around inside the house. I wouldn’t give much for this commercial’s chances as an endorsement, or as a standard advertising pitch to give the product (or its owner) the characteristics of the spokesman, but as comedy – as a spot that attempts to cut through the clutter of advertising noise through the use of humor – it has possibilities. Whether the product has a future in the U.S. market remains to be seen, however…