Lingerie Bowl too "distracting" for DaimlerChrysler
AUBURN HILLS, United States (AFP) - DaimlerChrysler Corp., under pressure from its dealers and distaff clientele, has cancelled its sponsorship of a controversial television show involving scantily-clad women.
A senior marketing executive made the announcement Wednesday, saying that the automaker's backing of the "Lingerie Bowl," had become a "distraction."
"The event was diverting media and consumer attention from current products, and from the great new products we are preparing to launch next year," DaimlerChrysler's global marketing chief George Murphy said in a statement.
Chrysler Group spokesman James Kenyon said the decision came after several complaints from Dodge dealers, female buyers and women who work for Chrysler.
Chrysler viewed the event as a way of reaching a highly prized demographic niche -- men between 18 and 35. It planned to use the 20 dollar pay-per-view event to plug its new Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle.
The Lingerie Bowl was initially conceived of as a game of contact football between women, some of them former Playboy Magazine playmates, that would air during the half time of the Super Bowl.
But the deal had already generated a lot of negative press coverage, and at a meeting Wednesday, about 200 dealers from across the conservative Midwest told Chrysler executives that the sponsorship had alienated some potential female Dodge buyers.
"One dealer said he had a female buyer in his store and the woman told him that she would never buy Dodge if the company sponsored" such a thing, said a Michigan dealer who was at the meeting but asked not to be identified.
:nooo:
AUBURN HILLS, United States (AFP) - DaimlerChrysler Corp., under pressure from its dealers and distaff clientele, has cancelled its sponsorship of a controversial television show involving scantily-clad women.
A senior marketing executive made the announcement Wednesday, saying that the automaker's backing of the "Lingerie Bowl," had become a "distraction."
"The event was diverting media and consumer attention from current products, and from the great new products we are preparing to launch next year," DaimlerChrysler's global marketing chief George Murphy said in a statement.
Chrysler Group spokesman James Kenyon said the decision came after several complaints from Dodge dealers, female buyers and women who work for Chrysler.
Chrysler viewed the event as a way of reaching a highly prized demographic niche -- men between 18 and 35. It planned to use the 20 dollar pay-per-view event to plug its new Dodge Durango sport utility vehicle.
The Lingerie Bowl was initially conceived of as a game of contact football between women, some of them former Playboy Magazine playmates, that would air during the half time of the Super Bowl.
But the deal had already generated a lot of negative press coverage, and at a meeting Wednesday, about 200 dealers from across the conservative Midwest told Chrysler executives that the sponsorship had alienated some potential female Dodge buyers.
"One dealer said he had a female buyer in his store and the woman told him that she would never buy Dodge if the company sponsored" such a thing, said a Michigan dealer who was at the meeting but asked not to be identified.
:nooo:
