In short, my fellow marketing chum Christopher Hunter wrote an intriguing article about the new partnership between Chrysler (more specifically Dodge’s Durango SUV), and Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell). He discussed the exclusive mutually beneficial relationship between both parties, and in turn how effective the ads are. To take this analysis further, I’m applying the marketing mix to this ingenious relationship, more specifically looking at how the combination of product and promotion for the Dodge Durango can produce such effective advertisements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzfVT6j_1dY

Product:

Dodge’s advertisements for the Durango combine the comedy and popularity associated with Will Ferrell with a product to back it up. While the commercials do focus on the humorous aspect of the partnership, noteworthy elements of the SUV are focused on, bringing to light features in a vehicle rarely or never mentioned in car commercials. Ron Burgundy exemplifies this in the ad, mentioning the Dodge Durango’s “0.1 cubic feet of storage, 12 volt light bulb, all in beautiful injection molded thermoplastic olefin,” even though that may not be much to brag about. Burgundy also mentions more common aspects of a vehicle commercial bringing light to the Durangos’s available “Hemi V8 engine and 360 horsepower.”

Promotion:

While this advertisement campaign does focus slightly on the product itself, the bulk of its effectiveness and appeal to the market is in the promotion. Ron Burgundy already is a popular social figure, so putting him in Dodge’s advertisements automatically associates the SUV with popularity and the hottest social trend. On top of just having Will Ferrell/Ron Burgundy in the commercials, they’re actually funny. This whole advertising premise is based on Ron Burgundy’s character, so if the writers for the ads couldn’t duplicate the character everyone knows and loves, this marketing campaign would be a total flop.

In summary, Chrysler took advantage of the popularity of Ron Burgundy and faith in their product (the Dodge Durango) to create a string of very effective ads.

http://stwot.motortrend.com/files/2013/10/ron-burgundy-2014-dodge-durango-horse-796×528.jpg

https://pictures.dealer.com/jdpower/ae486cbf0a0a00640147164d997224f0.jpg

In the past week, news about the American government shutting down has been plastered all over the Internet, radio, and television. For those living under a rock—or simply don’t understand what happened—the two major American parties could not come to an agreement to raise the country’s budget constraint. Why does this matter? The country is legally obliged to meet this constraint, and could now only do so by cutting costs. In order to cut costs, part of the government has been shutdown.

While this is a very interesting topic—one which hasn’t come up for 17 years—you might be asking yourself “But Logan, how does this relate to marketing?!” Technically it doesn’t. But at the same time, it kind of does.

Both American parties (the Republicans and Democrats) are major brands. Within these brands, there are brand supporters. Within these supporters—or what we’re used to calling customers—there are 4 types: new supporters, regular supporters, loyal supporters, and advocates. Once part of the government shutdown, what separates these groups became significantly more distinguishable.

At one end, there are the advocates, who support their respective party through thick and thin—even if that means they’re supporting a party who shut down the government.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the new supporters (new customers) who have little personal affiliation with the party they support. These are the supporters most affected by the shutdown, because they’ll change their voting preferences depending on how they interpreted the situation.

While the American government is shut down, both parties are assessing the impact their decisions are having on future elections. So what’s the bottom line? American parties are trying to cling on to supporters (customers), while still following their respective (yet risky) strategy of pursuing the best interest of America.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/news-video/video-ap-gfk-poll-gop-gets-the-blame-in-shutdown/article14765817/

In New Poll, Americans Blame Everyone for Government Shutdown