Essay on Design
Chrysler is one of the most renowned American car manufacturing brands but today the company and its brand face considerable problems because of the steep decline in the production and the loss of one of the leading positions in the US market as one of the leading American car manufacturers. Today, Chrysler is owned by Fiat, the Italian multinational car manufacturing corporation which has purchased Chrysler recently and attempts to revive the brand and reorganize the production to make it profitable and fast growing as it once used to be. Nevertheless, at the moment, the company has to invest into the revival of the brand because Chrysler is still a recognizable brand, while its revival can potentially return it to the leading position at least in the US market on the condition that the brand revival is accompanied by structural, technological and qualitative changes within the company and its production processes as well as design and concepts of its new vehicles. Therefore, Chrysler is the brand that needs revival because the brand has a good reputation but the economic turmoil has put the brand on the edge of survival that means that the revival of the brand can skyrocket Chrysler back to leading position in the US car manufacturing industry making it one of the most popular brands in the US again.
History of the brand
Chrysler was founded in 1925 (Maynard, 2014). The company has had a tumultuous history as the third-largest of Detroit’s auto companies (Newel, 2011). Known in the years after World War II for its well-engineered cars, it has spent the last three decades bouncing between highs and lows. The company encountered financial turbulence in the late 1970s that prompted it to seek a Congressional bailout, a process that vaulted its chief executive, lee A. Iacocca to national prominence (Maynard, 2014). Chrysler paid off the loans early in the 1980s, when it enjoyed success thanks to its minivans and a family of fuel-efficient autos called the K-cars (Maynard, 2014).
In 1987, Chrysler bought the No. 4 automaker, American Motors, but the subsequent consolidation prompted another financial crisis that led to a restructuring of the company (Maynard, 2014). In the 1990s, Chrysler came back again, with vehicles like the powerful Dodge Viper sports car and its Jeep lineup (Maynard, 2014). In 1998, Chrysler was acquired by Daimler-Benz of Germany and spent the next eight years as part of DaimlerChrysler (Maynard, 2014).
The 2000s marked the steep decline of the company which first tried to deal with GM but eventually was sold out to Fiat after the economic recession in the US in 2007-2008 (Maynard, 2014). Part of the motivation for the auto group’s $4.35 billion deal to take full ownership of the No. 3 U.S. carmaker was to give Fiat access to Chrysler’s finances so it could invest in new models to revamp its loss-making operations in Europe (Maynard, 2014). Analysts have raised concerns about Fiat’s growing debt pile and its ability to fund a strategy that will shift the automaker’s focus to its upscale Maserati and Alfa Romeo brands from an over-reliance on low-margin mass-market models (Maynard, 2014).
Responding to a request for clarification from market regulator Consob, Fiat said that beyond the cap, dividend payments were also subject to the condition that Chrysler’s liquidity exceeds a threshold of $3 billion. Chrysler’s liquidity totaled $14.7 billion at the end of 2013 (Maynard, 2014). Fiat also insisted that intercompany financing was limited by covenants that require deals to be approved by a majority of “disinterested” members of the Chrysler board of directors.
At the moment, Chrysler needs to revive its brand because the company used to be a successful brand in the past. Therefore, today, the company still has a considerable potential, while revival of the brand can enhance its position in the US market (Robbins & Finley, 2005). In this regard, the new owner of the brand, Fiat, can also benefit from the revival of Chrysler brand because the company can sell its products under the revived brand and use the popularity of the brand to enhance its position in the American market.
The advertising and/or other agencies involved in developing the brand communications
At the moment, the company relies on its own marketing department to create and promote the brand of Chrysler. Such strategy is determined, to a significant extent, by attempts of the company to save costs. The choice of such strategy is questionable in light of the significance of brand and its impact on the marketing value of the company in the contemporary business environment. In actuality, brand influences consistently the marketing position of companies because customers often make their choices on the ground of their recognition of the brand. Therefore, brand can increase the market value of the company (Masterson & Picton, 2004). In such a situation, reliance on the company’s resources puts under a question the effectiveness of the revival of Chrysler brand because the revival of the brand needs the effective and exclusive promotional campaign and the brand development plan in the long-run perspective.
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