DaimlerChrysler begins ad campaign

The ads introduce the transnational company that has emerged from the combination of Chrysler Corp., the No. 3 U.S. automaker, and Daimler-Benz AG, the German company that owns Mercedes-Benz. Together they comprise the world's fifth largest automaker as measured by vehicle sales.

Using the theme, "Expect the extraordinary," the print-only campaign features close-up, black-and-white portraits of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler employees by celebrity photographer Richard Avedon. The ads begin appearing in newspapers Wednesday and in magazines dated for next week.

"We've started with a focus on the people," said A.C. "Bud" Liebler, vice president of marketing for Chrysler. "Whatever success we have is going to be because of the people."

Each ad pairs employees from both of the parent companies under such headings as "curiosity meets curiosity," "speed meets speed" and "energy meets energy." The intent is to suggest that their combined strengths will result in a bigger, more competitive automaker.

A determined-looking Robert J. Eaton, who led Chrysler and is co-chairperson of DaimlerChrysler, is shown in one ad wearing a racing suit opposite Mika Hakkinen, the world champion Formula One driver for McLaren-Mercedes. Brief descriptions of each appear under the heading, "courage meets courage."

"Even at 300 km per hour, he stays as laid-back as life in his native Finland," the ad states of Hakkinen. Eaton is portrayed as something of a speed junkie, too: "His weekends seem to fly by. Especially when he's behind the wheel of a Neon race car."

The copy below their portraits describes DaimlerChrysler as a place of extraordinary minds" and "fearless thinkers."

In another ad, a pair of crash-test dummies from Mercedes-Benz and Chrysler's Dodge division are showed arm in arm under the heading, "passion meets passion."

The ad describes the Dodge dummy as one who "loves riding high behind the wheel of a Ram pickup. Requests country music on the radio." His equally bald German counterpart "prefers to work on crash tests with SLK roadsters. Loves to feel the wind in his, um, hair."

The copy declares that while DaimlerChrysler is new, it has "a long standing commitment to driver and passenger safety." It notes that DaimlerChrysler's 428,000 employees include "some passionately dedicated dummies."

The reach of the three-week campaign reflects the new company's global scope: It will appear in more than 100 countries. Business people and opinion leaders will be the primary targets through business publications, but ads also will appear in general-circulation news magazines.

The campaign will consist of a 12-page magazine insert, nine newspaper spreads and a slick, 24-page brochure. The brochure will be distributed to about 130,000 business leaders, investment bankers, analysts, government leaders, news media, suppliers, dealers, distributors and union leaders.

Liebler said the company opted not to use television for this initial campaign because the target audience was not that broad, and because of the high cost of running TV ads in 100-plus countries.

Creating the campaign was an early test of cooperation between marketing officials of both companies. "This was a quick way to see how our cultures are going to mesh, and we found they mesh pretty well," Liebler said.

Approvals took more time than usual because of all the people who had to sign off, including the separate boards of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz.

"It's probably not the toughest advertising execution we ever pulled off, but it was probably the toughest approval process," Liebler said.

The campaign was developed jointly by the Chrysler and Daimler-Benz ad agencies, Bozell Worldwide Inc. in Detroit and Springer & Jacoby of Hamburg, Germany. The brochure was done by Ross Roy Communications Inc. of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., another Chrysler agency.

Liebler declined to discuss the campaign's cost.

DaimlerChrysler plans to advertise its vehicle brands separately. The new company will have no logo initially, other than the company name in the same typeface that Daimler-Benz used.

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