Lost in nomansland: SAAB's 'Change perspective'

'Move your mind'... what do these three words tell us about a car? Pretty much nothing. It is as meaningless as so many other brand slogans out there. Take LG's 'Life's good' or Buick's 'Drive beautiful' (ca. 2007). They are generic statements that have no relevance whatsoever. No link to the brand, no potential to build lasting brand equity. A consumer shopping around for cars needs to be given at least one takeaway that he/she will remember about this car. 'Move your mind' seems more suitable for a travel destination in India offering meditation classes or the like. The fact that the commercial is beautifully shot is not enough.

When GM reorganized its agency roster in 2007, it wasn't doing so well financially, and dramatically needed to cut cost. Negotiations with the Interpublic Group of Agencies (IPG) were opened up, and the accounts were moved within the network to the roster agencies in Michigan (to cut travel cost?). While Leo Burnett in Detroit did the right thing by sticking with probably the second best slogan in automotive advertising: 'We are Professional Grade' for GMC (second after Volkswagen's 'Think small' from back in the 1960ies), the new agency for SAAB - McCann Erickson in Birmingham thought they knew better by changing everything.

HUGE mistake! Granted, SAAB's advertising for years wasn't very memorable. Things changed drastically though when Lowe New York in 2006 completely rebranded the automaker, and brilliantly hooked the brand back to its Scandinavian roots with its then new slogan - 'Born from Jets'. Wow! How powerful. A car. Born from Jets. I see an army of highly skilled engineers not only developing the intelligence for airplanes, they also put that knowledge into a car. How incredible is that?! (SAAB = Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Corporation)).

Now they tell us to "move your mind". What? I'm completely lost. Move my mind? Think outside the box? Change my perspective? What perspective? Does everyone have the same perspective? If so, what is the underlying premise? None of that is explained here. It just doesn't add up. 

Furthermore, McCann wasted 36 out of 42 seconds in the commercial above by not showing a car at all, or giving any indication whatsoever that this is a car commercial. At an estimated $400,000 production cost for professionally made 30 second TV commercials, $360,000 were wasted! Ad the same proportional amount of 85%, you can calculate the financial waste included in every :30 second spot they run on TV. I am speechless, and unable to comprehend how this concept ever got the green light.

Parveen Batish, Saab's Executive Marketing Director tells us "The 'Move Your Mind' campaign concept fits perfectly with the Saab audience". "Our customers want the quality and performance that come with a premium brand, but they don't want the pretense associated with some of the established premium brands." Alright. And they didn't know that before? Did Lowe & Partners just make up their insights and the resulting ideas? I'm sure they spent a lot of time and money on consumer research, market insights and developing the brand strategy platform that led them to 'Born from Jets'. 

Compare this GMC commercial from back in the days that uses the same idea of someone sitting at the drawingboard sketching ideas. How different!



Related links:
Saab on Facebook
Historic Saab advertising slogans