Automakers step up their game for Super Bowl

Kia

Kia will use supermodel Adriana Lima, right, rock legends Motley Crue, left, and former UFC champion Chuck Liddell in their Super Bowl spot this year.

By Dan Carney

There was angst in some quarters last weekend when the New York Giants defeated the Green Bay Packers, ensuring that the reigning Super Bowl champions won’t be returning this year.

I don’t know what show Packers fans saw last year, but what most of us clearly remember is Volkswagen dealing its competitors a stunning blow with their “The Force” commercial featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader. And VW will most assuredly return to this year’s extravaganza.

Super Bowl commercials cost advertisers $3.5 million for 30 seconds of air time this year, according to industry trade publication AdWeek, and some of the epic car commercials will run 60 seconds. The contenders take the field against one another in pursuit of the glory that comes with victory before an expected viewing audience of 110 million.

VW heads a roster of car companies advertising during the big game, including Chrysler, whose incredible “Imported From Detroit” commercial with Eminem would have otherwise been the big winner, and Audi, whose “Green Police” spot was among the top 2010 spots from the game.

The champs from VW are confident in their new 60-second spot.

“Last year’s Super Bowl campaign was an overwhelming success for the brand,” noted Brian Thomas, VW’s General Manager of Brand Marketing. “We see this year’s Super Bowl as a great way to continue this success.”

Among the automakers hoping for a breakout performance this year are Chevrolet (and probably also Cadillac from GM), Honda, Acura, Hyundai, Kia, Lexus and Toyota. Any one of these companies would hope for a “The Force”-like victory.

GM is pulling out the stops to ensure it has this year’s talked-about commercial. The automaker has put together five spots this year, and it hasn’t even decided which five it will run, according to spokesman Pat Morrissey. Here’s hoping the company will steer clear of the sappy commercials it has tended to run in the past with its “Chevy Runs Deep” tagline.

Audi

Audi has advertised in the Super Bowl for five years.

Four of the commercials were created by GM’s ad agency, but the fifth will be crowdsourced from among more than 200 entries by amateur filmmakers. We can preview those spots at this website.

Volkswagen unleashed “The Force” online days before the game last year, so keep an eye out for a preview of that company’s spot.

Chevrolet introduced its Cruz compact car to the public with last year’s commercial — a model that contributed to Chevy reclaiming its spot as the top-selling car brand in the U.S. last year, said Morrissey.

Audi has advertised in the Super Bowl for five years, and over that time the company has achieved record sales, record brand strength and higher transaction prices, according to Scott Keogh, Audi’s chief marketing officer. Audi returns this year with a 60-second spot that highlights the LED headlights on the upcoming S7 model.

“The Super Bowl is unique in modern American advertising,” observed Steve Shannon, vice president of marketing for Hyundai. “It provides a huge audience and one that actually likes to watch the ads,” he said. “What could be better?”

Hyundai’s sister brand Kia will use supermodel Adriana Lima, rock legends Motley Crue and former UFC champion Chuck Liddell in their spot this year, said Michael Sprague, vice president of marketing and communications for Kia.

“After last year’s game, online search activity for the Optima increased 700 percent while online consideration increased 255 percent, so we know it’s the marketing event of the year in terms of reaching a mass audience and capturing their attention,” Spraugue said.

It is that ongoing interaction with potential buyers that sets Super Bowl advertising apart from other commercials, explained Keogh.

“With Audi in the Super Bowl you get these secondary and tertiary benefits,” he said. “Afterward, we got two billion (web) impressions. Now with social media like Facebook and YouTube, you get a massive multiplier there. If we run this very same ad on CNBC in March, you will never get all that.”

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Americans keeping their autos longer than ever

Elaine Thompson / AP

Traffic moves across the Highway 520 floating bridge in Medina, Wash. American drivers are holding on to their cars and trucks for longer, new data suggest.

By msnbc.com staff and wire

American drivers are holding on to their cars and trucks longer, new data suggest, as they put off buying new vehicles in the face of high unemployment and a struggling economy.

The average age of a vehicle on the road has climbed to a record 10.8 years, according to automotive research firm Polk. Last year the average vehicle on U.S. roads was 10.6 years old, up from 10 years in 2008, Polk said.

While the average age of passenger cars has shown a modest increase since 2010, rising from 11 years to just 11.1 years at the end of June 2011, light trucks (including pickups and SUVs) have seen a more sizeable gain, rising from 10.1 years to 10.4 years in the same timeframe. Overall, average vehicle age has risen quickly over the past five years, Polk said. The firm uses national vehicle registration data in its analysis.

Polk says the average vehicle age has been rising since 2008, but a rebound in vehicle sales last year is likely to slow the aging rate. Automakers sold 12.8 million vehicles in the U.S. last year, up from 11.6 million in 2010. Analysts expect auto sales to continue rising in 2012.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Car manufacturers put their cars on a diet

Fuel consumption is with gas prices the $4 per gallon threshold pushing a big problem for car buyers and automakers alike become. Many U.S. drivers still hesitate seem to embrace the kind of pint-sized vehicles, the in markets such as Europe and Japan common.

"People don't want small cars, drive", stresses George Peterson, automotive analyst at AutoPacific. "they want bigger, more fuel-efficient cars drive."

With American driver taste, some experts suggest that the challenge for automakers is today not the 50 miles per gallon come with a small car,. Instead the challenge is a medium-sized model to create, which can deliver 40 mpg.

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Until recently, this objective seemed a fantasy, at least without a costly hybrid drive. But automakers have come to discover a variety of other tools in their Toolbox, can improve the mileage substantially without downsizing, Peterson said.

They are for example vehicles on a diet at Ford set.

"Medium-term from now until 2017 or 2018, we will remove anywhere from 250 to 700 pounds, depending on the vehicle,", said Derrick Kuzak, Ford's global product Chief.

According to an industry rule of thumb has each 100 pounds added or subtracted from the mass of a vehicle a mpg impact on fuel consumption, so Ford's weight should result strategy anywhere from about two to seven miles a gallon in extra fuel, everything else is equal.

Ford is by no means the only manufacturer to folder. Hyundai moved about 150 pounds of the weight of his new accent subcompact, who it a highway reaching review of more than 40 mpg helped.

And Honda has similar steps. John Mendel, Chief Executive of the automakers of US subsidiary, has with reference to the improvement of fuel, the economy that "There of only so many levers you can pull and are two of the largest weight or size." said.

How shed a few pounds for a wedding or a reunion anyone who has ever tried white, is not easy diet. And it's especially hard for automotive engineers. Every year seems to new safety regulations require new equipment for cars, such as stability control, or rigid bodies that survive the latest roof can crush standards.

Add all the integrated features, consumers demand of heated and cooled leather seats, twin headrest mounted rear seat video monitors, and the challenge of slimming down is even more difficult.

"That is why, despite all our efforts in the industry cut weight in the last decade, the weight of most vehicles have actually increased," lamented Carlos Tavares, President and CEO of Nissan Americas.

Concerned business, steel makers have that come with a variety of super strong alloys, actually reduce the amount of metal needed in a car, losing even with the tougher roof crush standards.

But the industry is also migrate, as far as possible, to newer, lighter alternatives. For example, she used latest Jaguar XJ, an aluminium housing and housing, while the new Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 lightweight carpets.

The Porsche Cayenne redesign has a full 408 kg with the use of lighter materials and a revised drive shed. The line across it gets at least a 10 percent increase in mileage, even with the Twin-Turbo V8 model of the car accelerate from 0-60 times drop from 4.9 to 4.4 seconds.

Aluminium can shave hundreds of pounds of the weight of a body of conventional steel car. And the metal is mounted in steadily increasing demand, such as magnesium, which is used for applications such as the cross-beams behind many modern instrument panels.

Plastic, in all their material of choice for bumpers, instrument panels, Interior trims and even some body panels many forms, has become - although the discontinued Saturn brand was over the material for doors and fenders because of a nasty tendency to the shrinking and swelling, depending on the ambient temperature.

The material of the future, many are betting, is carbon fiber. Seemingly so easily such as air, the material has become extremely popular with manufacturers of high-priced sports car, such as Lamborghini, the carbon fiber for a large part of the new 200 mph Aventador used sports car.

The problem is cost. Traditionally has a price tag in the range of $200,000 required with carbon fiber in a car, but the changes can be. The Geneva Motor Show earlier this year would mini showed concept Rocketman, the carbon fiber on a car priced at just under one-fifth as much as use of Lamborghini Aventador. Mini's parent, BMW, invested in carbon fiber research, such as some other manufacturers have.

"Carbon fiber has come potential, if we can with possibilities for improving the manufacturability and lower costs," said Ford Kuzak.

The Detroit automaker of engineering Czar stressed that it is difficult, an existing vehicle set on a diet. Instead, it is better to start with a new car platform. One of the advantages with this approach is that if you cut a few hundred pounds of total weight of the vehicle you can save even more then a smaller engine adoption, "Downsizing" of the brakes and other components.

While Ford was driving has to trim mass even faster than before, Nissan's Tavares warned that "you should concentrate not only on weight loss."

There are many other ways, fuel consumption, aerodynamics, improved tyres and reduces friction drives, including impact, he said. By investing in all these areas, car manufacturers have many ways to improve the mileage enough to reduce buyer bigger cars abandon their fuel economy without that that they like.

© 2011 msnbc.com. 

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