Advertising: Clearing the Air on Diesel’s Dismal Reputation

In Europe, diesel is a mainstay, but not so in this country, where unpleasant experiences in the 1970s and 1980s led a generation or two to regard diesel as if it were a synonym for “Edsel” and remain uninterested in subsequent diesel engines that were cleaner, quieter and more fuel efficient.

BMW of North America would like to change that, in large part because as an auto company with a German parent, Bayerische Motoren Werke, it already has access to diesel technology. The ability to further amortize the development costs of those engines by changing North American minds about diesel must appeal mightily to the accountants in Munich.

“We have authenticity and credibility when it comes to diesel,” said Dan Creed, vice president for marketing at BMW of North America in Woodcliff Lake, N.J., adding, “You go to Europe, we have markets where 80 percent of what we sell has diesel engines.”

“I’m 46 years of age, and I remember the stigma of diesel growing up,” Mr. Creed said, so an advertising campaign, which gets under way this week, will seek to dispel the negative perceptions among “those who still hang on to them.”

The lack of interest in diesel in this country during the last 30 years also means that younger drivers may not be considering it when they shop.

As Mr. Creed put it: “You talk to someone 25 years old, they have no idea about diesel. They look at you and say, ‘Huh?’ ”

As a result, the BMW campaign will also have an informational aspect. To achieve its goals without seeming didactic or scolding, the campaign takes a humorous tack. For instance, many of the ads carry the theme “It’s time to come clean,” reveling in the double meaning of the phrase.

In one commercial, for the BMW 3 Series diesel, a preppy young man approaches an older man, the father of his girlfriend, and says: “Excuse me, sir, can I talk to you? Jenny and I have thought about this a lot and we decided ... we were thinking ... we bought a diesel.” The father has an uncomfortable look on his face until his future son-in-law gives him a ride in the car.

In a second spot, for the 5 Series diesel, a wife buttonholes her husband, saying, “We need to talk.” She continues: “I don’t know how to tell you this. I’ve been bored lately. I just needed more excitement ... It’s just ... Well, I’ve switched to diesel.”

In the ride-in-the-car part of the commercial, it is the husband who is driving; when he revs the engine, the wife purrs, “Do that again.”

Both commercials end with an announcer intoning: “It’s time to come clean. BMW, the ultimate driving machine.”

There is also a brief, cheeky spot for the 5 Series diesel, destined for digital media like YouTube, that shows a BMW revving in place with smoke coming from the tires rather than the tailpipe. “That old diesel smoke problem?” the announcer asks. “Totally optional.”

The campaign is being created by Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners in New York, part of MDC Partners. Ed Brojerdi, president and co-chief creative officer of the agency, declared himself to be “a huge gear head” before asserting that “diesel is just not what it was” because the new engines provide significantly improved mileage and what he called “head-snapping” performance.

A new BMW diesel “handles like a BMW and feels like a BMW behind the wheel,” he added. “It’s like the ultimate driving machine with benefits.”

It is the goal of the campaign to convey that to “a generation that has not been exposed to diesel” for whom “diesel hasn’t been in the conversation,” Mr. Brojerdi said, as well as to “people from back in the ’70s and ’80s” who associate diesel “with ‘dirty’ and ‘smelly’ and ‘not that powerful.’ ”

The campaign is unafraid to make claims that some might find hard to believe. For instance, one commercial makes the mileage argument by comparing a 3 Series diesel BMW to a gasoline-powered Smart.

“Thirty-eight miles per gallon is impressive,” an announcer says as the Smart appears on screen. When the BMW arrives, he adds: “Until, of course, 45 highway miles per gallon comes along. Forty-five miles per gallon in a car you want to drive.” Ouch.

Some ads acknowledge how skeptical consumers could be. For example, print ads and billboards devoted to the 45 m.p.g. mileage figure follow it with this: “(Yes, you read that right.)”

“There’s a little Missouri there,” Mr. Creed said, referring to that state’s “Show me” motto. “Seeing is believing.”

BMW of North America plans a budget for the national part of the campaign comparable to a budget for a campaign to bring out a new car; those can range in cost from $5 million to $25 million.

In addition to the media spending for the campaign by BMW of North America, there will be additional spending by BMW dealers in local markets, beginning this week.

The national ads are to start next month, Mr. Creed said, and will “gear up through the N.F.L. season and the season premieres” of fall television series.

Advertising: A Shared History in Detroit Is an Ad Inspiration

The partnership unites Chrysler and “Motown: the Musical,” about the musical legacy of Berry Gordy and Motown, the record label he founded that is now owned by the Universal Music Group. The musical, scheduled to open on April 14 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater, is the beneficiary of an elaborate promotional initiative by the Chrysler brand that supplements the show’s own efforts to encourage ticket sales.

The centerpiece of the Chrysler brand’s support is a television commercial that has been running nationally since December, featuring Mr. Gordy riding in a Motown Edition of a Chrysler 300C sedan as the seminal Motown song “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” plays on the soundtrack.

The commercial, created by a Chrysler Group agency, GlobalHue in Southfield, Mich., begins with Mr. Gordy at the original “Hitsville U.S.A.” Motown headquarters building in Detroit and ends with him arriving at the Lunt-Fontanne and declaring: “We are Motown. And this is what we do.” As Mr. Gordy enters the theater, the Chrysler slogan appears, altered to read “Imported from Motown.”

The words “ ‘Motown: the Musical’ on Broadway March 2013” appear, referring to the start of previews on March 11, and the address of the show’s Web site, motownthemusical.com, along with the Chrysler brand Web address, chrysler.com.

The commercial is believed to be the first time that a Broadway show has had such paid national television exposure as it prepares to open in New York. The commercial is in addition to a commercial that the producers of “Motown: the Musical” are running on stations in the New York market; the local commercial was created by SpotCo in New York, part of Reach4entertainment Enterprises.

The Chrysler brand will also buttress the show’s marketing with colorful signs to go up in coming days in Penn Station and Times Square. The signs display a Chrysler 300 Motown Edition, the Chrysler logo, the logo of “Motown: the Musical” and photographs of cast members of the show like Brandon Victor Dixon, who portrays Mr. Gordy.

The Chrysler Group is spending an estimated $6 million to $8 million to promote “Motown: the Musical.” The budget for the ads from the show’s producers, Mr. Gordy, Kevin McCollum and Doug Morris, is estimated at $2 million.

The automaker’s efforts extend beyond the product placement and sponsorship agreements that have become increasingly prevalent on Broadway as theater enters the realm of so-called entertainment marketing with television, movies and video games. Unlike the provisions of many of those deals, the Chrysler name is not being added to a lyric of a Motown song, nor are there plans to park a car in the lobby of the Lunt-Fontanne.

Rather, the partnership is about “merging both journeys, the journey of the Chrysler brand and the journey of Mr. Gordy and his music,” said Olivier François, chief marketing officer at the Chrysler Group.

“Motown is the most exported from Detroit of any music and, in this case, imported to New York,” Mr. François said. “It’s putting together the sound and the drive of Detroit. We were meant to meet.”

That thought is expressed in the national commercial, in which a narrator proclaims, “Because if cars are our city’s heart, music is its soul.”

That the partnership is centered on music is no coincidence. Mr. François, a producer of pop music in his native France in the 1980s, described the Motown catalog as “part of the American patrimony” that “will live forever.”

“And so is Chrysler,” he said hopefully. “Regardless of my passion for the Motown music and my respect for Mr. Gordy, I would not have pushed to tie a brand to Motown if there wasn’t this new Chrysler story,” Mr. François said, referring to “Imported from Detroit,” which was introduced in 2011 with a Super Bowl commercial featuring another famous Detroit music figure, Eminem.

“The Motown name has a huge value,” he added. “Does it have a huge value for any car? Maybe not.”

Mr. McCollum, whose Broadway credits include “Avenue Q” and “Rent,” invoked another musical to explain how the show and the Chrysler Group came together: “Kismet.”

“About a year ago, we flew to Detroit and sat down with Olivier and his team, and they pitched the idea,” Mr. McCollum said. “It’s about a collaboration between these two great American industries that came out of one place.”

Besides, he added, Mr. Gordy was “highly influenced by his early days working in an auto plant, learning that you have to put something out there people want.”

Mr. McCollum said he was glad to join Mr. François and Mr. Gordy in “celebrating Detroit when you’d think it’s contrarian thinking” to do so because Motown, Chrysler and “Motown: the Musical” are all about “the power of the American dream.”

The SpotCo campaign for the show — and a public relations effort by Boneau/Bryan-Brown in New York — play that up. The local commercial, for instance, extols Motown’s songs as “the soundtrack that changed America, the beat of a generation, the soul of a nation.”

The goal is “less transactional,” said Ilene Rosen, associate chief operating officer at SpotCo, and “more about synergizing the Motown and Chrysler brands to elevate both.”

As much as other Broadway producers would probably welcome a deep-pocketed partner like the Chrysler Group, the unique circumstances that produced the partnership may make it difficult to emulate, she added.