To Boost Sales, Saturn Rethinks Itself—Again

In its new marketing campaign, GM's Saturn brand hopes a more sophisticated approach will attract women buyers

Saturn VUE. Getty Images

by David Kiley

It wasn't an easy conclusion to reach for Eric Hirshberg, the chief creative officer of ad agency Deutsch, Los Angeles, which has been the guardian of Saturn advertising for the past 15 months. But he realized last fall that the sometimes schmaltzy small-town, almost Hallmark card personality that launched Saturn in the late 1980s finally had to go the way of Bob Dole's White House aspirations. Hirshberg says that extensive research the agency conducted in the last six months showed the "heartfelt" approach doesn't work to sell the products Saturn is selling today. "We found out that we need to take a deep breath and move on."

Last year, Deutsch launched a new ad theme for the General Motors (GM) brand, "Rethink." One ad typical of the effort used a rock music background, Higher by Soundcage, and tried to establish the new theme, for example, by contrasting an image of a steroid-filled bodybuilder against cancer survivor and bike-racing champ Lance Armstrong. The idea? "Rethink Strength." Another image, contrasting a V12 Biturbo engine with a hybrid car, put forth the notion "Rethink Status."

But the ads last year were perhaps too subtle, and didn't do enough to show Saturn's new vehicles. Saturn sales last year were up just 6.1% despite two new models highly praised in the motor press, the Aura sedan and Outlook SUV. The brand, which GM launched with so much promise and hope nearly two decades ago with the theme "A Different Kind of Company. A Different Kind of Car," has been adrift for most of the last eight years, selling just 240,000 vehicles last year. That's far below the 286,000 it sold in 1994 when it just had one car to offer buyers.

A Different Tone

Saturn and Deutsch's new TV and print ads, which break this week, retain the "Rethink" theme, but have a much different tone and message. And, there is a lot more rich photography of the vehicles. In the first of a series of ads that will air heading into June, the Vue subcompact SUV emerges from its garage. As it traverses the streets, the vehicle transforms itself and its surroundings. As it narrowly avoids a crash, it is suddenly surrounded in armor. As it drives, the power lines transform into trees. The driver, as he looks at the navigation map, suddenly sees huge arrows in the road showing him where to go. The ad's music is Lil' King Kong by Irish band Simple Kid, a much "sweeter and positive-sounding soundtrack than we used last year," says Hirshberg.

In print ads, there is an image of the Sky roadster and Astra approaching a Hot Wheels-like track loop, with the headline "Rethink Adrenaline," an image that will be reprised in a TV ad. There is also an image of the Outlook SUV sprouting a sail on its roof and a graphic that shows 27 mpg on highway for the seven-seater. "Rethink Big" is the headline. The ads run in such magazines as Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, and Fast Company, with high readership among women between ages 20 and 40.

So what are these changes in creative direction supposed to accomplish, and why is Saturn no longer looking back to the small-town sweetness of the 1990s that included an ad showing a Saturn reunion of owners at the Spring Hill (Tenn.) assembly plant? GM and Deutsch have been conflicted about whether to go back to the small-town feeling of the original Hal Riney ads. The agency and GM unit did more consumer research from last year to this year than is typical. The critical finding: Car buyers who like Saturn's new vehicles but weren't buying them say the small-town "Main Street America" feeling of the brand and heavy emphasis on customer service in Saturn's ads make for a brand they didn't want to "wear." The sentimental tone of the old campaign signaled economy cars and poor quality, consumers told Deutsch researchers.