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Please stay on topic. These comments could be offensive to some list
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In a message dated 6/26/2013 4:30:58 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jrawa@xxxxxxx writes:
I wasn't
going to jump in, but Larry is on board... This sad society isn't happy unless
there's something to cry about. At the time, the LeFemme had pink on it to
appeal to women... Because pink is girlish and at that time women were
becoming, or were allowed to be more independent.. Cherokee, pontiac,
cheiftan.. they should be honored.. and I didn't know scottsmen were cheap! I
just learned a stereotype!
What should really happen is the govt should
start liberal motors, have cars named tree hugger, that secretly put out
4times more emissions, or electric cars called the men-on-men, that you
connect together by phallic looking plugs to charge at night!
If only
the minds of America could have individuality as they did when fins were
in...people need a good slap, but today you'll get sued!
Sent from my
Verizon Wireless Phone
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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