Dodge Charger flexes its muscle-car image.(News)

Byline: Mary Connelly

Dodge Charger advertising will stress muscle-car performance, style and value.

Dodge is shipping the vehicle to dealerships now. Dealer orders total 26,800 units, the company said last week.

The Charger's biggest job is rebuilding Dodge's image as a carmaker, says Darryl Jackson, vice president of Dodge marketing. Last year, trucks represented 78 percent of Dodge's U.S. sales.

Jackson cites company research showing that 70 percent of people recall the Charger name from the American muscle-car era and associate the name with Dodge.

TV commercials began with two 30-second spots last week. Two more spots break Tuesday, May 24, and June 1. Print ads will be launched in July.

Dodge will not disclose spending. The three-month Charger launch campaign will cost an estimated $60 million, according to Advertising Age, a sister publication of Automotive News.

The Charger interactive Internet campaign is Dodge's most ambitious, says Fred Diaz, director of Dodge marketing communications.

Dodge also is taking the Charger to the streets of Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, New York and Washington.

Twice an hour, actors will assemble a life-sized Dodge Charger, pit-stop-style. The Charger is a production model broken down into modules and re-assembled on the street, a Chrysler spokesman says. The modules will be taken from a model box that recalls the era of toy car kits. After each assembly, the Charger will be driven away.

One theme

The Charger campaign is built around a single theme, Dodge says. The brand wants consumers to see driving a Charger as a way to "liberate the untamed inner spirit,'' Diaz says.

For example, in one TV spot, a Charger and a dragster race through a deserted amusement park. A sudden cut to the Charger driver paying a tollbooth fare creates the sense that the driver was wrapped in a fantasy, Diaz says.

A 30-second spot targeting African Americans and Hispanics shows a pulse of electricity imprinting the Dodge logo on the brain and heart of a Charger driver. The male driver is "transformed from conservative to cool,'' the company says.

Most TV spots are expected to carry a tag line promoting the Charger's $22,995 base price, which includes shipping, Diaz says.

Dodge is not using the tag line, "That thing got a Hemi?'' Nor is the brand relying on humorous vignettes with recurring characters, as it did in promoting the Hemi engine. Dodge wants the Charger "to be the star'' of the ads, Diaz says.

Cartoon freaks

Today, May 23, Dodge will launch a downloadable desktop tool that allows consumers to create a computer icon. The so-called induction unit allows Dodge to send information about Charger events, contests, videos and news to personal computers.

Dodge also is creating four animated cartoon characters for its Internet campaign. A power freak, a control freak, a speed freak and a style freak will reside in a 3D universe designed to convey Charger's attributes.

He says the car's primary competition includes the Nissan Altima, Ford Five Hundred, Pontiac Grand Prix and Chevrolet Impala.

CAPTION(S):

In one TV commercial, the driver of a new Dodge Charger fantasizes about racing a dragster.