Displaying a talent for zoning in on what’s hot in pop culture and a refreshing sense of humor, the marketing team at Detroit-based General Motors Corporation’s Buick division partnered with the television series Desperate Housewives, which is produced by Touchstone Television and airs on ABC, to promote the Buick LaCrosse.
As fans of the show will recall, the Buick LaCrosse was featured in a recent storyline that found Gabrielle Solis (Eva Longoria) seeking modeling work to bring in money to keep her upscale household running after her wealthy husband Carlos (Ricardo Chavira) wound up in jail with his assets frozen. A former high-fashion model perhaps a bit past her prime, Gabrielle reluctantly accepted an assignment serving as the spokesmodel for the Buick LaCrosse at a local shopping mall.
Standing in front of the car, which sat on a rotating platform at the mall, Gabrielle, clad in a gown, spoke into a microphone, announcing, “I present to you the fabulous Buick LaCrosse! It has expertly crafted interior, peaceful QuietTuning and ultrasonic rear parking assist. Observe the remote activation feature.”
While clicking a remote to start the car, Gabrielle spotted her neighbor Lynette (Felicity Huffman) and Lynette’s husband Tom (Doug Savant) approaching. Mortified, status-conscious Gabrielle lost track of her scripted pitch and quickly ad-libbed, “Uh, and it also has a lot of exciting other cool car things,” while trying to slip away unseen.
But Gabrielle’s attempt to avoid her neighbors was foiled when her dress got caught in the rotating platform, and Lynette and Tom spotted her. Forced to chat with the couple, Gabrielle nervously claimed that she was at the mall shopping with a friend.
START HER UP
The integration of a Buick vehicle into a storyline on Desperate Housewives was–in some ways–a logical progression. After all, the carmaker has been running commercials during the campy primetime soap that centers on the lives of suburban women, and the character Lynette actually carts her baby and three rambunctious boys around in a Buick Rendezvous.
Given these ties between Buick and Desperate Housewives, the producers of the show naturally thought of Buick when Gabrielle’s car spokesmodel storyline came up and contacted the company (Jill Cooney is Buick’s advertising manager) to see if there was interest, according to Buick spokesperson John Wray.
There was, of course. Buick saw the inclusion of the Buick LaCrosse in a storyline on the series as a creative means to raise brand awareness for the car–which only hit showrooms last fall–among the female, baby boomer demographic, Wray explained.
But accepting the pitch proposed by the producers of Desperate Housewives involved a great deal of trust on the part of Buick, which had absolutely no say in the scripting of the storyline and no script approval. “We couldn’t put handcuffs on the creative people,” Wray reasoned. “They are so good and so talented at that level that it would be counterproductive to put them in a box.”
The writers did require background information on the Buick LaCrosse, though, so Buick sent them a list of talking points that the company uses to sell the vehicle. “We mentioned that QuietTuning is a Buick exclusive, one of the ways we’re really promoting the vehicle, and they picked up on that, and they used it [in the script],” Wray said, noting, “But it was totally up to them.”
The leap of faith paid off for Buick. The writers of Desperate Housewives integrated the Buick LaCrosse into the show in an organic manner, with a touch of humor. “One of the things we’ve focused on in the last couple of years is trying to bring out the lighter side of Buick,” Wray remarked. “So this was a way to have a little bit of fun with a wink and a smile.”
While measuring the ROI (return on investment) for any branded entertainment endeavor remains somewhat elusive at this point, the word-of-mouth feedback received by Buick on this effort has been positive, Wray reported.