Chrysler ads target Tea Party anger

AUBURN HILLS, Mich., July 6 (UPI) -- Chrysler ads are tapping into the anger felt by consumers, including some anger that is pointed directly at Chrysler, a marketing expert said.

The television ad that ran during the Fourth of July weekend showed a potential revolutionary war skirmish that ended -- after the prerequisite momentary buildup of tension -- with Chrysler brand cars charging out of the brush and scattering British redcoat soldiers. George Washington drives a Dodge Challenger in the ad, which ends with a voiceover declaring: "Here's a couple of things American got right: Cars and freedom."

The ad targets Tea Party members, many of whom are angry that car companies were handed enormous federal bailouts, including Chrysler, which received billions of dollars from the government, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

J. Walker Smith, executive vice president of market research firm Futures Co., told the newspaper Tea Party sympathizers "feel very much this sense of betrayal."

Among other targets of "consumer outrage," he said, Tea Party members "feel it toward Wall Street. They feel it toward the automobile industry."

Republican pollster John McLaughlin said: "You have to be careful. If you segment things (marketing) by party, then you're just cutting off a whole segment of the market."

Chrysler spokeswoman Dianna Gutierrez declined to comment on the charge that the ad targeted an anti-bailout crowd but she said bailout funding was involved in production of the ad. With that in mind, she said, Chrysler borrowed costumes from an old Mel Gibson movie to save money when producing the spot.