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Bob, You are correct, and that is why I thought that the list
would be interested in the first salvos on Chrysler's choice of the Cherokee
name. With so many other things going on in the world, I think the focus
should it be on whether the vehicle is a good, quality SUV, not the choice of
name (which is pretty neutral) or some people's perception of "political
correctness".
If the new Cherokee is anything like the former Cherokee,
Chrysler will have a winner (and Mopar's new car health is good for all of
us who have older Mopars). They can call it a lot of names, but it will
live or die in sales on if it is a good value for consumers, not the PC
arbiters.
Larry in Ohio
In a message dated 6/26/2013 6:26:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
bobsbelvedere@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Hi - I was hoping this was one place where Mopars took center stage
but I see some want to talk politics and their view of the what's good and bad
in our country. Can we all just agree to leave that crap at home or the
office or the garage and focus our distaste on Chevy? Bob from Maine
On Jun 26, 2013 4:03 PM, < ALIENVOICE@xxxxxxx> wrote:
The original article by Glenn Collins speaks to Chrysler's recent
announcement that the replacement for the Liberty will be named
Cherokee. Amazing that with all he issues today of governmental
corruption, corporate greed and the theft of liberty through spying on our
citizens, that we have those who focus on the naming of a Chrysler
vehicle. I thought you might be interested in what is the first of I
am sure many comments on the naming of the new Jeep Cherokee.
PS: The response above the original editorial below by
Glenn Collins was my response to the Forward Look list.
Larry (Akron)
Welcome to the world of political conformity and
correctness. Since the name Cherokee has never denigrated the
Cherokee Nation, nor American Indians, I am surprised that anyone would
have any concern with the re-introduction of this honored nameplate.
Maybe Chrysler's use of the name without negative"stereotypes" will save
it the righteous outrage of America's Liberal elite, although I see some
enterprising Lawyer somewhere approaching Native Americans to help sooth
their "offense" through a substantial lawsuit of the Chrysler barbarians
(is Barbarian an offensive term?).
The Cherokee name is a good name, a strong name, and a
name that Americans associate with solid, quality transportation for the
family and for occasional (or not so occasional) forays into the boonies
for the fun of driving.
That noise you hear is America clapping for the
Chrysler execs who made the correct name choice.
Larry in Middle America (Akron, Ohio)
57 (2), 58, 59 Coronets & 60
Saratoga ForwardLook and many more Mopars
In a message dated 6/26/2013 11:44:04 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, x779@xxxxxxxxx writes:
When Cars Assume
Ethnic Identities
Making its debut for the 2014 model year is a
new Jeep with a name from the brand’s past: Cherokee.
By GLENN
COLLINS
June 21, 2013
Coming to a showroom near you for
2014: the first sport utility vehicle in its class equipped with a
9-speed automatic transmission. It’s also the first to offer a
parallel-parking feature. And, in 4-wheel-drive models, the rear axle
disconnects automatically, for fuel efficiency.
Oh, yes: its
name is the Jeep Cherokee.
Hold on -- wasn’t that model name
retired more than a decade ago? Wasn’t it replaced by the Jeep Liberty
for 2002?
Yet now, in a time of heightened sensitivity over
stereotypes, years after ethnic, racial and gender labeling has been
largely erased from sports teams, products and services, Jeep is
reviving an American Indian model name. Why?
“In the automobile
business, you constantly have to reinvent yourself, and sometimes it’s
best to go back to the future,” said Allen Adamson, managing director of
the New York office of Landor Associates, a brand and corporate identity
consultancy.
Jeep, a division of the Chrysler Group, explained
that its market research revealed a marked fondness for the name. The
2014 version, said Jim Morrison, director of Jeep marketing, “is a new,
very capable vehicle that has the Cherokee name and Cherokee heritage.
Our challenge was, as a brand, to link the past image to the present.”
The company says it respects changed attitudes toward
stereotyping. “We want to be politically correct, and we don’t want to
offend anybody,” Mr. Morrison said. Regarding the Cherokee name, he
added: “We just haven’t gotten any feedback that was disparaging.”
Well, here’s some: “We are really opposed to stereotypes,” said
Amanda Clinton, a spokeswoman for the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. “It
would have been nice for them to have consulted us in the very least.”
But, she added, the Cherokee name is not copyrighted, and the
tribe has been offered no royalties for the use of the name. “We have
encouraged and applauded schools and universities for dropping offensive
mascots,” she said, but stopped short of condemning the revived Jeep
Cherokee because, “institutionally, the tribe does not have a stance on
this.”
So far, marketing materials for the 2014 Cherokee model
have eschewed references to, or portrayals of, American Indians and
their symbols. That’s a far cry from the excesses of past years, when
marketers went beyond embracing stereotyping to reveling in it. Indeed,
Chrysler’s restraint seems an indication of just how much things have
changed.
For decades, American Indian tribal names have helped
to propel automobiles out of showrooms. Return with us now to the era
when Pontiac’s sales brochures carried illustrations comparing its
6-cylinder engines to six red-painted, feathered cartoon Indian braves
rowing a canoe.
Or review Pontiac’s marketing copy, which
proclaimed that “among the names of able Indian warriors known to the
white race in America, that of Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas and
accepted leader of the Algonquin family of tribes, stands pre-eminent.”
Of course, the visage of the chief was appropriated as a hood ornament.
Many other tribes were adopted as marketing tools. Long gone is
the Jeep Comanche pickup truck, sold in the late 1980s, along with the
Jeep Comanche Eliminator.
Certainly, American Indian names are
still in the market: consider Indian motorcycles, about to resurface
under yet another new owner, Polaris Industries. And Chrysler’s
full-sized S.U.V., the Grand Cherokee, introduced in 1992 as a larger
version of the Cherokee and still a market leader. In fact, its success
was a reason for the revival of the Cherokee name for a midsize S.U.V.
American Indians have hardly been alone in the cavalcade of
automobile cultural stereotyping. In the 1950s, advertising for the
Studebaker Scotsman didn’t actually use the word cheapskate, but
prospective buyers were informed that “when you and your family sit in
your thrifty Scotsman...this great Studebaker body cradles you, your
family and friends in safety.” It should be noted, though, that the
Scotsman featured cardboard door panels and its hubcaps and trim weren’t
chrome-plated: they were painted silver.
While there is no
indication that the General Motors Viking was discontinued in the early
1930s because of protests by outraged Scandinavians, it’s a certainty
that no automaker’s copy writers would dare write today that “the
development of the Viking car closely parallels the development of the
Viking youth in attaining manhood,” where “only those best fitted for
leadership survived to contribute to the strength and superiorities of
the race.”
Moreover, in the Roaring Twenties there was no
apparent feminist backlash against the Little Jordan Tomboy. The cover
of its 1927 advertising brochure depicted a smart, stylish woman in
jodphurs and knee-length boots, clutching a riding crop. The purple
marketing prose stated that “I am the Little Jordan Tomboy,” with “a
thousand miles of open road before my saucy nose.”
Also hard to
fathom today is the Studebaker Dictator, “Champion of its Class,”
discontinued after 1937, when the rise of Hitler and Mussolini gave the
model name an unpleasant odor.
In the late 1920s, the quest for
association with high-profile leaders led the Windsor Autoworks in St.
Louis to shamelessly place a color portrait of the Prince of Wales on
its 1929 brochure for a new vehicle, The White Prince. Buckingham Palace
was not amused, and expressed its displeasure.
American Indians
have long opposed derogatory sports-team labels and likened fans’ use of
war paint to the derogation of African-Americans with blackface. The
N.C.A.A. has forbidden the use of nicknames, as well as mascots, logos,
signs and band uniforms that are “deemed hostile or abusive in terms of
race, ethnicity or national origin.”
In 1994, St. John’s
University in New York changed the name of its sports teams from the
Redmen to the Red Storm. Also gone are the Miami Redskins and the
Marquette University Warriors; the Southeastern Oklahoma State
University Savages are now the Savage Storm.
The Washington
Redskins have resisted; so have the Atlanta Braves, opposing a name
change or the discontinuation of its tomahawk chop. But the Braves’ team
mascots, Chief Noc-A-Homa and Princess Win-A-Lotta, have been
remaindered.
Even aside from the use of an American Indian
tribal name in the Jeep Cherokee, the risks are high in the introduction
of any vehicle. Automobile experts estimate the cost of renewing a
nameplate like Jeep Cherokee at more than $50 million.
Why,
given these risks, return to a discontinued brand? “Coming up with new
names is very expensive these days,” said Mr. Adamson, the brand
consultant, explaining that trademark research, focus groups and legal
due diligence can be costly. The growing quest for viable names -- and
the third-rail of stereotypical labeling -- are possible explanations
for the advent of such hard-to-spell monikers as the Volkswagen Tiguan,
and the growing adoption of concocted names like Acura, Elantra,
Infiniti and Lexus - as well as the proliferation of alphanumeric
designations.
“New models have all of these three-letter-code
designations that mean nothing to me,” said Stephen W. Hayes, a
Manhattan automotive historian and a collector of printed auto
memorabilia, of nameplates like MKX, RX 350, F-150, 328i, QX56 and GL450
that populate the auto world. “Companies don’t name their cars as
colorfully anymore.”
Nevertheless, “just the name of a brand
itself is one of the most powerful marketing tools you have,” Mr.
Adamson said. “Automobile brands define who you are, and Cherokee
summons up rich associations.”
The Jeep Cherokee was a winner
from the start, introduced in 1974 as a sport utility vehicle with the
latest gadgets. Recent market research revealed that “there was so much
passion behind the Cherokee,” Mr. Morrison, the Jeep marketing director,
said. “What was really interesting was that people’s fondness for the
Cherokee was greater than that for Liberty.”
Giving the new Jeep
its old tribal name may have seemed just another acceptable risk. “Names
can be polarizing, and can cause controversy, so you have to be
careful,” Mr. Adamson said, but opposition to brand names has become
something of a national pastime. “Anytime you introduce a name, someone
will be upset.”
A name that has zero associations is even more
likely to sabotage a new model’s introduction. “If you have a name that
offends nobody, then you end up with a forgettable brand” that won’t
cling to the memory, Mr. Adamson said.
“So,” he said, “it just
won’t be sticky.”
=Lou=
~~~~~~~~~~ **-=\/=-** ~~~~~~~~~~
The opposite of bravery is not cowardice, but conformity. Robert Anthony *************************************************************
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