Toys4RJill

DETROIT -- Buick, General Motors’ fastest-growing U.S. brand in 2016, plans to advertise in the Super Bowl for a second consecutive year as it prepares to introduce three more new vehicles.

Buick officials on Wednesday said the brand has purchased 30 seconds of commercial time in the first half of the Feb. 5 game. The ad will build on the brand’s “That’s not a Buick” campaign that mocks outdated misperceptions of it.

Buick is amid a two-year transformation that includes seven new or freshened products. It brought out four of the seven in 2016, including the Cascada convertible and Envision compact crossover. The Cascada was featured last year in Buick’s first-ever Super Bowl commercial, which starred New York Giants receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and actress/model Emily Ratajkowski.

“We’ve reached halftime in our new product rollout as we enter 2017 and are excited to again be a part of the big game as we continue to grow awareness and shift perception of our brand,” Buick said in a statement.

Buick revealed no details about this year’s commercial. Its introductions this year include redesigns of the Enclave large crossover, which is expected to be revealed at the New York auto show in April, and the Regal midsize sedan. It also plans to launch a high-end subbrand called Avenir.

Buick’s marketing chief, Tony DiSalle, said the brand has made “tremendous progress” since starting the misperceptions campaign nearly three years ago. U.S. sales rose 2.9 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, compared with a 1.3 percent decline for GM’s sales overall.

In addition, Buick has made gains in third-party ratings, including the first-ever top-three finish by a domestic brand in last year’s Consumer Reports reliability survey.

“We’ve seen good growth in brand health, and our sales are up,” DiSalle said in an interview at this week’s Detroit auto show. “It takes a long time because those misperceptions are formed over a long period of time. We have people that we still haven’t intercepted yet that we still need to get on the radar screen.”

Fox Sports was planning to seek more than $5 million for 30 seconds of ad time during in the Super Bowl LI, Variety reported. Last year’s Buick ad led to a 25 percent bump in traffic on Edmunds.com pages for the brand’s lineup, which was tied for third among automotive brands that advertised in the game.

http://www.autonews.com/article/2017...r-the-big-game

mmarshall

Despite the amount of money spent on them, I'm not sure that Super Bowl ads are really the best way to sell cars......particularly today. For several reasons (including scandals among NFL players, teams, and management, and the rise of competing sports like hockey, soccer, and basketball), NFL attendance and ratings have been down in the last couple of years. Added to that, FOX, who is carrying this year's Super Bowl wants over 5 million for a 30-second slot......an obscene figure, IMO. Not only that, but many people simply look at Super Bowl ads for their entertainment value, rather than consider them a serious pitch to open their wallets and by the product. Companies admit they they put more effort into Super Bowl ads than any other type, but is it really paying off?

IMO, Buick's high reliability ratings in Consumer Reports (CR probably gets as much or more circulation than Super Bowl ads), the increase of its product-appeal to younger and non-traditional buyers with products like the Cascada and Encore, and the promise of a truly luxury-grade vehicle like the Avenir (which, IMO, could compete with the Lincoln Continental, Cadillac CT6, and similar-class foreign-namepmate luxury sedans) will do a lot more for the brand than spending millions of dollars on a 30 or 60-second circus-piece.