Chrysler’s Addiction to Discounting

Last summer I introduced the Brand Autopsy Discount Detox Center in response to the Employee Discounts for Every One (EDEO) epidemic wrecking havoc on the automaker industry. I even shared Brand Autopsy’s proprietary Marketing Intervention Guidelines to be used by empathetic marketers wanting to reach out and help their fellow marketers inflicted with the EDEO disease. The Center for Marketing Disease Control & Prevention did manage to contain the EDEO Epidemic. But that was then and this is now.

Now, we hear Chrysler is jonesin’ to reduce its bloated inventory of cars and is getting back on the juice. Yes … sadly Chrysler is using again.

Advertising Age is reporting that early next month, Chrysler will begin offering prospective customers the same discounts their employees enjoy. The Circle of Addiction continues!

It pains me again to see a business return to using addictive discounting tactics to drive short-term sales. As a marketing doctor with Brand Autopsy, I’ve seen far too many businesses overdose on discounting. And once these businesses OD on discounts … they never seem to recover and regain the marketing vitality they once enjoyed.

I am begging readers of the Brand Autopsy blog to show tough love and confront this matter head-on. If you know anyone in the DaimlerChrysler Marketing Department, I hope you feel it in your heart to conduct a Marketing Intervention NOW . . . while we still have time. You can read the complete Brand Autopsy Marketing Intervention Guidelines here but the basic guidelines are posted below. Let’s work together to save our fellow marketers from the hellfire that awaits when discount addiction overcomes a marketer.

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While it is best to use a trained marketing interventionist to help you develop the intervention strategy, you can conduct the intervention yourself. The following Marketing Intervention Guidelines from the Brand Autopsy Discount Detox Center will help you design and conduct your intervention.

Bring together a minimum of three and maximum of eight people who are important to the business and to the marketer in particular. The best marketing intervention groups have a broad mix of people including some from outside the company such as customers and vendors.

Set up a planning meeting with all participants to discuss the intervention. Be very discreet in all your actions so as not to alert the suffering marketer.

Each group member is to write a letter to the addicted marketer listing how they may have helped to enable the addiction and all the negative consequences caused by the marketer’s addiction. Each letter should close with a statement asking the marketer to seek treatment for their addiction.

Rehearse the intervention with all the group members. And at this meeting, set a date, time, and place for the actual intervention to occur. You will also need to create a plan to bring the addicted marketer to the intervention as well as choose a treatment center. If the chosen treatment center is out-of-town, then you will need to make necessary travel arrangements.

The intervention group will need to identify objections the addicted marketer may use to avoid or postpone treatment and then formulate appropriate responses.

Plan to be at the intervention location 30 minutes before the addicted marketer is expected to arrive.

At the intervention, confront the addicted marketer by reading your letters aloud, editing out anger, blame, and judgment. Read the best, most heartfelt and tender letter last. (Usually a letter from a concerned customer cracks any addicted marketer’s wall of denial.)

After the intervention, call the admissions staff at the chosen treatment center and let them know whether or not the addicted marketer has agreed to treatment.

Collect all letters and send them to the addicted marketer’s counselor at the treatment center.

Click here to read the following sample Marketing Intervention Letter (.pdf).

Comments

[Jason]

Hilarious presentation of some very good marketing principles!

[smartl]

Good post! I thought of this blog when I saw a commercial last night for "Ford Family Pricing," a return to their EDEO tactic from last year (in Canada anyway) that you can see here:

http://www.ford.ca/main/default.asp?language=en&Section=48&sVehCategory=&Model=

It just made me laugh. Giving the program a new name does not make a lick of difference.

[alan herrell - the head lemur]

Let's not forget GM's Down Payment Assistance!

The only folks I see making any sense is VW with the Jetta Program. Commercials are weird as hell, but I bet they don't sell below sticker.

Ford's new commercials "If you have a ford you will get lucky", the woman paying for the guy behind her's shirts, is a real sleazy one if you think about it for 30 seconds or so.

[Matt Steele in the Hour of Chaos]

Is it OK if I buy a new Chrysler before I attend the intervention?

[johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy)]

Matt … your actions may be well-meaning to buy a Chrysler car. However, doing so will only enable Chrysler to continue its addictive discounting behavior. Don’t enable Chrysler, DISABLE Chrysler.

Enablers, such as yourself, or any person willing to buy a Chrysler using an EDEO deep discount, actually help to continue the destructive coupon addictive behavior by preventing the addict from facing the consequences of their marketing behavior.

As responsible consumers, I believe it is our moral obligation to see that discount addicted marketers get the help they so desperately need.

So ... stop lying for Chrysler, stop protecting Chrysler from embarrassing financial results, and start being honest with Chrysler no matter how painful the conversations may be.

The Marketing Intervention Guidelines I shared above will help you openly and honestly confront Chrysler with rational discourse. Care and compassion are the keys to a successful marketing intervention. And showing care and compassion, along with a healthy dose of open and honest feedback, is exactly what Chrysler needs to reverse the discount death spiral they are suffering from. Godspeed Matt. Godspeed.

[Stuart]

really good.

Stuart