Porsche docucommercial on IFC tonight

[glb]

For Porsche’s First Sedan, a Focus on Its Origins

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/bu...ef=todayspaper (shows video)

STUART ELLIOTT
Published: October 14, 2009

HOW interested are consumers these days in buying gold-plated shares of A.I.G. stock dusted with caviar? Diamond-encrusted yachts once owned by a Ponzi schemer? Scrabble sets with platinum boards?



The campaign says the “Panamera is simply the newest branch on the family tree.” {gb: yeah, some say ugly tree}

Not very, it is safe to say. So how keen will they be to buy a sports car that begins at $89,800 and can cost up to $132,600? The answer will begin to be determined on Thursday as Porsche Cars North America, a division of the German automaker Porsche, formally introduces the 2010 Panamera, the brand’s first sedan.

A four-door Porsche? Really? A sports car with room for four? Really? A luxury car with a name that sounds like a mash-up of Pan American, Panera and “Panamania,” a song once sung by Dorothy Lamour? Really?

Porsche Cars North America and its agency, Cramer-Krasselt in Chicago, acknowledge the daunting challenges they confront. To be sure, the recession has decimated demand for cars, particularly higher-price models, and shoppers are loath to spend for anything other than groceries and gasoline.

Oh, yes, and conspicuous consumption has become as popular as Bernard Madoff in Palm Beach.

“Is Panamera coming into the market a little early?” David Pryor, vice president for marketing at Porsche Cars North America in Atlanta, asked. “Maybe,” he added, but “you have to have a little optimism,” because “we may have seen the end of the worst of it.”

Porsche sales in the United States have risen for the last two months in a row, compared with the same months of 2008, Mr. Pryor noted, “and September was up over August.”

Also, Porsche was one of only six companies to sell more vehicles in the American market last month than in September 2008. (For the first nine months of 2009, however, Porsche sales fell 32 percent from the same period the year before.)

“This isn’t the greatest time to sell anything at this price point,” said Marshall Ross, chief creative officer at Cramer-Krasselt, who described himself as “a sports car fan forever.”

So the campaign to introduce the Panamera is “not about showing off status or showing a beautiful car,” Mr. Ross said. Rather, it is about celebrating that Porsche owners are “in love with driving” by asserting that as different as it is, the Panamera fits into the Porsche family alongside models like the 911, the 917 driven by Steve McQueen in the movie “Le Mans” and even the early 356 Gmünd coupe.

To underline that point, those cars, and almost 50 more, appear with the Panamera in television commercials and print advertisements, on two Web sites (panamera.com and porscheusa.com/family) and even in a 30-minute program on the IFC cable channel. The show, part of a sponsorship agreement between IFC and Porsche Cars North America, includes interviews with “Porschephiles,” to use a term favored by Mr. Ross, like Jerry Seinfeld.

Porsche Cars North America is spending an estimated $15 million to $20 million on the campaign, which Cramer-Krasselt has been working on since landing the company’s creative and media account in September 2007.

In fact, “coming up with strategic concepts for the launch was part of the agency review” in which Cramer-Krasselt was selected, Mr. Pryor recalled.

The theme of the campaign, “Four, uncompromised,” speaks to the idea that “whenever we come out with a new model not in our traditional area,” he said, like the Cayenne sport utility vehicle, “you have to do a certain amount of convincing people that it’s a Porsche.”

So the ads declare that “Panamera is simply the newest branch on the family tree,” Mr. Pryor said, and seek to reassure Porsche owners of the new model’s lineage as well as appeal to “a group out there that drives sports sedans like BMW or Mercedes and never considered Porsche before.”

In a 60-second TV commercial, an announcer declares: “Over 60 years ago, Dr. Ferry Porsche couldn’t find the car of his dreams. So he built one. A full-blooded, unapologetically pure sports car. Since then, every Porsche has fulfilled a dream of one kind or another. Introducing the Panamera, the first true sports car for four. And another bold line on the family tree.”

At that point, the camera pulls back to show an aerial shot of the 50-odd Porsches, old and new, arranged to form the branches and trunk of a tree. The words “Four, uncompromised” appear onscreen.

The making of the commercial is part of the program on IFC, called “Welcome to the Family,” which is to have its debut at 10 p.m. (Eastern time) on Thursday. The channel is calling the show a documentary rather than a program-length commercial.

“This is subject matter deserving of a documentary look,” said Evan Shapiro, president for the IFC and Sundance channels at Rainbow Media Holdings, part of Cablevision Systems, because “there is a passion for Porsche not present with other brands, other car brands.”

“Being a car guy myself, looking at those cars onscreen, it’s almost like Porsche porn,” he added. Vignettes promoting the program will run on both IFC and Sundance, and the program is likely to be repeated on IFC next month.

For those wondering about the derivation of the name Panamera, Mr. Pryor said it came from La Carrera Panamericana, “a famous road race back in the ’50s.” The event, also called the Mexican Road Race, was revived in a different form in 1988; the 2009 edition is scheduled for Oct. 23 to 29.

The Panamera campaign is among several major efforts getting under way for the 2010 model year; others include Hyundai, Ford, Lexus and Toyota. And brands like Cadillac, Chrysler, Dodge and Volkswagen are reviewing their creative accounts.

A Porsche lover, Jerry Seinfeld, second from left, appears in “Welcome to the Family,” which will have its debut on Thursday on IFC and highlight the brand’s first sedan, the Panamera.

[Bavarian Motorist]

I read the Panamera was REALLY good and is an amazing performer. Good thing too, because it sure isn't gonna sell based on looks.

[glb]

Originally Posted by Bavarian Motorist

I read the Panamera was REALLY good and is an amazing performer. Good thing too, because it sure isn't gonna sell based on looks.

both traits shared by me, too.

[cornbeef]

went to set the dvr and it says its a religious show

[glb]

Originally Posted by cornbeef

went to set the dvr and it says its a religious show

wow some ppl are REALLY into Porsches!

[apk919]

Originally Posted by glb

...
HOW interested are consumers these days in buying gold-plated shares of A.I.G. stock dusted with caviar? Diamond-encrusted yachts once owned by a Ponzi schemer? Scrabble sets with platinum boards?...

That's why my "Cayenne" has VW (People's Car) badges, and is a ULEV-II turbo diesel...

[ezmoney]

Porsche already has a 4 passenger sport car (not 4 door) . . . the 911 . . . if the two back seat passengers are still connected to their mother with an umbilical cord!