awsure

It takes time to build that support...you can't launch a marketing campaign in a week and hope for results. You have to build it up months ahead of time. The GM guys obviously disagree with your premise as they are out there nearly two years ahead creating the buzz.

I can see this car having a 3-4 year run again if the company promotes it so halfheartedly. Mustang will keep banging along and release 27 new subspecies trim packages, Camaro will endure for a decade or more until they get tired of it. But hey, at least we will all have a rare collector item in 30 years and we can see a 2008 Challenger sell for $15-20M at the Barrett-Jackson auction in 2038. Yay!

Yankee - My parents had a Merkur when I was in high school (around '85-86) and the car handled really well, was quick, and very well designed ergonomics. I loved driving it. The turbo burned the motor up twice though. Damn fan never went off. It was definitely a fish out of water on the lot next to the old school luxury boats at the Lincoln dealer where we got it.

Axel

I'm thinking back to history actually. I remember what the concept Charger looked like and that one was promoted well if I remember right, even a Hot Wheels car came out of it. Racing interior with the 5-speed pistol grip shifter, power unknown since obviously compressed natural gas is not something that they would put in a production car....at least not yet, and four doors that blended so well that it was hard to tell that it had four doors. Again, obviously something that would probably have been changed since those door handles aren't something they usually bring to production. Because they promoted this type of Charger and turned around and made it something totally different, how many sales did they lose by that? I'm one of them I know that. I was just totally shocked at the piece of junk they brought out that replaced the concept.

My point being is pretty much what I said before, how many people are going to be upset if there are changes to the Camaro? They took all that time and effort promoting a car that never made it out, say if they make drastic changes to it, and now people see the new car and go, what is that? I want the Camaro not whatever that thing is. How many people are having a fit over the B-piller? And that's just on this message board, I really can't imagine what's going to happen if they change something else, say the butterfly valves, and what would happen if they were promoting the Challenger concept. I almost think that they way people had a fit on the Charger like they did that they are kind of afraid to promote this one in fear that they might do something wrong that would make everyone upset again.

I've learned in life that to keep things long enough in life to have them become collector items, things that are meant to be used all the time that is, that means that you never really enjoyed that item. You can look at it and say that you have something that's wort a lot of money and blow joe down the street doesn't, but the difference is blow joe may have had the same item, but enjoyed it more. You only live once, might as well enjoy it while you can.

RLSH700

Very interesting discussion with a lot of good points made by each side. Awsure, I must say that GM's marketing is hardly something that should be used as an example of perfect marketing as they are still struggling to turn things around. The problem with what GM is doing is that it will excite people for sure and get people to the point where they want to buy the Camaro, the problem is that they might be doing this too early. The interest in the Camaro is very strong now especially after the Transformers movie, but the problem is the potential interest peak could have been triggered too soon. Just because people are interested in it now, does NOT guarantee that they will have the same interest later on down the road. Now GM will have to keep spending money on keeping people interested in the Camaro during the waiting peroid. Even after spending the money on that, people will get disgusted by the fact that it isn't out yet and will notice some other car that will be getting a lot of press.

It is true that they will need to start campaigning for this car to make sure the public is aware of its existence; however, it is anti-productive to do it way in advance since the people will become frustrated that it isn't out yet. It is true that not having it in the 08 line-up for Car and Driver looks very bad, but that could be the consequence of delaying production until the spring of 08 and calling it an 08. One thing I have noticed is it seems as though many of Chrysler's new products get ignored. You will hear tons of things about the new Accord, but you hear almost nothing about the Avenger (granted the Accord is more popular model but it isn't even out yet). It seems to me that the press likes to ignore Chrysler these days. When either MT or C&D did a comparison between the Mustang and the Concept Camaro about a year ago, they were making a comparison purely on speculation and how they would equip the Camaro against the Mustang, not on actual engine engine offerings, yet the Challenger was hardly mentioned. Some of the problem is in the automotive press.

Also remember that heavy marketing does not always make a model successful. Supposively, the new Avenger is selling mostly as fleet vehicles despite the fact that they advertise it more than most of their models. Also remember that the problem with the Merkur could have been more than just the marketing and the sales people at the dealerships not knowing how to sell it. The forumla was not a guaranteed success forumla even for that era.

Jeremiah 29:11

If marketing a product was that simple, they would not have college degrees.

It takes the right product, at the right time, right price and right place.

There are a lot of variables in that equation for any one to predict. Kinda like weather forecasting. It takes a massive supercomputer
to model all of the variables inside all of those equations.

RLSH700

Exactly! Being a person who has almost finished his marketing degree I have studied about this. Alot of marketing changes can be made shortly before the product is produced. The funny thing is I am just now seeing Chrysler's new minivans and I'm not seeing or hearing too many commercials on the new ones, in fact, I see more ads on the old ones. Another thing to consider is the fact that they may not sure how much demand there will be for some of the upper engine possibility models (6.4L) with gas prices continuing to increase. They are making a lot of changes to their powertrain line-up lately and they might be considering whether just to use what they had for the LX cars or whether to go with more advanced technology. This isn't an easy process.

davecpa

It seems i rarely see an ad for a vette or viper. I always wondered if that was on purpose to help keep the mystique and rarity of these cars. As if to not make them a common occurance.. to keep the "wow" factor? In fact is that not the difference between advertising... Stating here is the product and price come buy it vs. Marketing by strategically placing a product in highly influential light.. such as having Dale Earnhardt Jr. wear his Budweiser hat?

awsure

Although my degree is not in marketing I have spent my entire professional career in sales & marketing. I can tell you that a sure fire way to fail in marketing is to do none (or next to none). Honestly, that's where Challenger is right now. You, me & everyone on this forum are goofy for this car...we don't need marketing. It's those folks that will fall into a potential buying demographic that are not really enamored on anything that need exposure to the product.

I am not talking about an all out blitz. I am talking about a cool website, some more articles (puff pieces), some exposure in movies...and more significant buildup within a few months of release. We are seeing basically ZERO. You afraid they might peak to early...I am afraid they will not peek their head out of the hole.

I apologize if I sound contentious but I think the steps I mentioned above would go a long way towards developing an undercurrent of interest that is sorely lacking.

RoswellGrey

One other factor is Chrysler's ownership having been in a state of flux for some time now. It well might be that lower-level people who likely would be the ones to orchestrate the publicity campaign are having to stay low-key to see exactly which direction the new owners want to go.

Or maybe the Chrysler publicity department is populated entirely by bozos and however many of us there are on this board and the others like it will be the only people who'll ever want to buy Challengers because we're the only ones who know about them.

Yankee

If you ask me, I think that's all the more reason WHY Chrysler should be playing the Challenger up now more than ever. By now I'm sure every motorhead at least KNOWS about the Challenger... but now that Chrysler is an "all-American" company again, what better way to celebrate than to promote its new latest-and-greatest achievement? (besides their all-new minivan, of course)

Cuda340

Car and Driver was probably only reporting on the 2008 cars that will be available for sale this fall. The spring release of the Challenger, technically makes it a 2008 1/2.