The General is having a tough enough time selling trucks in North America, but France? Fortunately for GM, the new American administration had a great campaign slogan, ideally suited to moving iron off the lot!
According to polls, the French gave a higher approval rating to Yasser Arafat than they did to George W. Bush, but they like Barack Obama almost as much as Zidane. Once that fact became clear to GM's European marketers (and after they did a little research to see what kind of copyright unpleasantness the DNC could hit them with across the Atlantic), a new ad campaign was born! You want deals, monsieur? Here's the deal: Buy a new Chevrolet Captiva (aka the Daewoo Winstorm and platform cousin to the Equinox) and Le Général will pick up the value-added tax for you, which amounts to a hefty €5800 rebate. Similar deals apply to the Epica, Nubira, and Lacetti. Just imagine those marketers at the meeting that cooked up this campaign, cheering and fist-bumping after each bullet point in the PowerPoint slide show:
•Yes We Can… take advantage of the fact that the American and French flags use the same colors!
•Yes We Can… likewise take advantage of the fact that our biggest division is named after a Frenchman!
•Yes We Can… badge-engineer any vehicle, any place, any time!
•Yes We Can… get this dust-gathering inventory off the showroom floor!
[Chevrolet.fr, thanks to Franzouse for the tip and the billboard photo!]