Dr. Z to the Rescue

It's been a mixed few days for DaimlerChrysler and it chairman, Dieter Zetsche. The automobile industry giant celebrated the opening of a new factory in China last week, but at the same time suffered unexpectedly high third quarter losses.

This is especially rough for Zetsche, whose tough restructuring plans landed him the top job in the first place. In recent months, Zetsche, nicknamed "Dr. Z" has also become the star of a controversial marketing campaign in the US, becoming a cult-figure in a strategy aimed at bringing out the "German-ness" of the Chrysler brand.

In one of the ads Dr. Z holds open the door of a DaimlerChrysler vehicle open, Zetsche invites an American reporter in and gives him a trip with speeds to match the German autobahn and a crash test to show off the car's safety features while extolling the virtues of the transatlantic automotive partnership.

Other commercials show the good doctor pulling a quality award from the folding compartment of a mom's minivan, skillfully deflecting a soccer ball with his head, getting yelled at by a director for forgetting his lines, and putting up with jokes about his most prominent physical feature: "Is that moustache real?"

But there's another, more pertinent question: Is a smiling German accent really the way to sell cars and trucks American style?

German-American selling point

"We have a very unique advantage with DaimlerChrysler having the heritage of Mercedes linked with Chrysler group," said Tom LaSorda, the Chrysler group president and CEO, said when he introduced the campaign back in June. "And we're very, very proud of that. So when we look at advertising we're proud of the German-American partnership and the consumers need to know it, and we'll use that going forward."

However, Jean Halliday, who covers the automotive industry for Advertising Age magazine, said while the commercials are amusing, the message is unclear.

"There are many Americans who do not know who Dieter Zetsche is," she said. "There was some research I found in my reporting that 80 percent of Americans who saw the ads thought the character was a made up person. They didn't realize he was really the chair of DaimlerChrysler AG."

Other critics complained that Zetsche's silly behavior in the ads was inappropriate for the chairman of an international conglomerate, though that would probably be less of a concern if the ads sold cars.

But Halliday said -- when looking at the numbers -- they didn't. When the ads were pulled earlier this month, there was talk that the campaign had been a dud.

DaimlerChrysler denies ad failure

Christine Mackenzie, the Executive Director of Multi-Brand Marketing & Agency Relations, for the Chrysler Group, said it's not a sign of failure that the high profile "Dr. Z" ads were abruptly stopped in September when it became clear that too much inventory and low sales were more pressing issues.

"We have to be very spontaneous and flexible, and that's the whole reason for taking down the 'Dr. Z' ads and replacing them with clearance spots," Mackenzie said.

Dr. Z's commercials may not have sold many cars, but he did enter the lexicon as a pop culture icon -- both hated and loved.

Pop icon soars higher than car sales

An online cartoonist compared his antics to a drunken circus monkey, and one Web graffiti artist altered an ad to show Zetsche in a Nazi uniform. Internet users bashed and praised the man with the moustache on message boards, and posted close to 6 million questions on the "Ask Dr. Z" Web site. For Chrysler's marketing division, that is a sign of success.

Yet Dr. Z doesn't quite seem to have all the answers. Late last week, Chrysler Group announced an expected loss of 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in the third quarter -- more than double what it had previously forecasted.

In a company meeting in Stuttgart, a group of reporters asked Dr. Z how he was going to find a cure for the problems facing Chrysler, which Zetsche said was hard hit by shift away from gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and pickups when gas prices went up.

"I think our first task is to stay with our basic conviction that we are on the way to recovery with the Chrysler group, and that it's about taking different aspects of our business to benchmark levels -- between productivity, quality, and appeal of our vehicles and so on," Zetsche replied. "Most importantly, we must build the brand. And this is by far where we have the biggest gap still."

The multi-tasking Dieter Zetsche was installed to stabilize the company, build market share, and personify a successful merger. All that leaves Dr. Z's fans with a good chance of seeing him back on television screens sometime soon.