Oldsmobile, fishing for a new image since the mid-1980s, is trying again to increase sales by revamping its media campaign.
Instead of TV ads featuring Hollywood stars and their offspring, the division of General Motors Corp. is favoring a serious, dry approach that emphasizes Oldsmobile's safety, performance and comfort."People want more information to make an informed decision," said Mike Grimaldi, the division's general marketing manager. "Today's customers are leaning to informative, believable advertising."
Olds is hoping the new advertising theme will boost market share. With two months left in the 1991 model year, Oldsmobile sales were down 15.9 percent compared with 1991.
However, the sales rate for the last 90 days has picked up and the company hopes the pace will continue through the beginning of the 1992 model year, which begins Oct. 1, said Oldsmobile general manager Mike Losh.
Olds' most recent advertising theme, "The New Generation of Olds," carried a series of ads with a line "This is Not Your Father's Oldsmobile."
Those ads showed celebrities, such as TV and movie star William Shatner and former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, along with their children in Oldsmobile cars.
"The intent was to say Olds was changing," Grimaldi said. But Oldsmobile began losing its older customers. And while the ads nabbed attention among younger customers, those customers did not go so far as to buy a new Oldsmobile, Grimaldi said.
The new ads will carry the theme "The Power of Intelligent Engineering." They will focus on specific features about Oldsmobile cars and trucks, from safety to performance.
Losh said Oldsmobile sales should get a shot in the arm in January, when the company introduces the new Oldsmobile Achieva, a compact replacing the Cutlass Calais.
He forecast a slim increase in Oldsmobile's market share during the 1992 model year. Oldsmobile had a 3.8 percent share through the first seven months of this year, compared with 6.5 percent at the end of 1986.
On Tuesday, Oldsmobile executives said the Achieva will go into production in Lansing in late October and be in showrooms after the first of the year.