Chrysler LLC is preparing to launch a marketing campaign to reassure customers and potential buyers that the auto maker is still alive and expects to bounce back from its bankruptcy filing.
The auto maker also will back its ads with a new slew of incentives starting Tuesday, according to dealers who were briefed on the campaign.
Print and TV ads are expected to break as soon as Monday using the tagline, "We're building a better car company....Come see what we're building for you," according to dealers.
Chrysler sales and marketing chief Steve Landry acknowledged the company has a campaign geared to address concerns consumers might have about buying cars from a company in bankruptcy.
"We want to establish a level of trust and confidence that customers can still buy cars and trucks from us and it's business as usual," Mr. Landry said. "We are working to exit bankruptcy as fast as we can."
Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week after it and the Treasury Department, which is overseeing its restructuring, failed to reach a debt-reduction deal with 46 secured lenders. The auto maker had already hammered out two other key agreements -- with the United Auto Workers union to cut labor costs and ease its obligations to the union's health care trust fund, and with Fiat SpA, the Italian auto maker that will take a stake in Chrysler as part of a strategic alliance.
On Friday, Chrysler reported its vehicles sales declined 48% in April to 76,682 cars and light trucks, a steeper decline than all other major auto makers. Overall new vehicles fell 34% in April.
In the past few weeks, as expectations of a bankruptcy filing increased, many Chrysler dealers have suffered as showroom traffic declined. On Friday afternoon in Skokie, Ill., the showroom at the Sherman Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep dealership was nearly devoid of customers. Sales associate Armando Bulnes played down the lack of customers, adding, "We're getting phone calls."
Mr. Bulnes said customers have been raising questions about the bankruptcy filing, and salespeople, too, were uneasy until news reports indicated the company could emerge from bankruptcy relatively quickly.
Bill Zink, a 60-year-old certified public accountant, asked the dealership whether it could accommodate his warranty for his five-year-old Jeep Liberty when he brought it in for a maintenance checkup Friday. When he was assured it could, he settled into a chair with a paperback. "Everything seemed to be business as usual," Mr. Zink said of the company's service-and-repair department. (The U.S. government is backing all warranties on Chrysler vehicles.)
Mr. Zink is a Jeep fan and said he soon would be on the hunt for a new one, regardless of the bankruptcy proceedings, as long as it's got a good warranty.
"Jeep's been around since World War II, so I'm not too worried," he said. "It just may not be with Chrysler. ... I'm loyal to the Jeep, not necessarily to the parent company."
