Gas prices are still wallet emptying high, the housing market is crashing, Wall Street is imploding, and in such a climate what is Chrysler going to do? Roll out with a massive advertising campaign that is centered around a web-based reality show promoting their updated Dodge Ram pick-up truck.
The promotion of the truck centers on a Web site, RamChallenge.com. The Challenge is an obstacle-course driving competition with four pairs of competitors, which Ms. Meyer said mirrored typical Ram drivers: cowboys, military men, firefighters and contractors.
While I actually applaud Chrysler's strategy of circling their wagons around one of their marquee core products, I'm skeptical about this reality show advertising concept. This is exactly the sort of stuff that companies such as Chrysler should avoid, because it comes across as trying to repackage what is essentially a lengthy commercial into something that it is not, or in other words putting lipstick on a pig, to use the parlance du jour. And this RamChallenge.com represents the worst of this: a Frankenstein shoe-horning of a hot TV format (reality shows) mashed onto a web platform, and then "ramming" it down the throat of consumers.