For the past three years now, I’ve been a Brand Ambassador (a BA as the 20 something co-worker who does that kind of work full time described it) for the San Diego International Auto Show over the New Years’ weekend. This year, one of the brands I represented and helped register people to test drive was the Fiat 500. During the training day before the event, we found out that the Fiat brand is being re-born in America after over 30 years of sleep. They shut down US sales in the early 80’s. Most of you have probably seen an ad for the car featuring J-Lo. Our product specialist trainer said Lopez has four of the Fiats and as a consumer you can custom make one with your favorite colors and styles–sort of like all the gizmos you can buy for your I-phone. They even created a 500 by Gucci and it’s available in limited production in both black and white styles.
So, as I was registering people to test drive both the hard and cabriolet rag top versions of the car, my eyes couldn’t stop following a dad and his two daughters that were eager to test drive the Fiats. One of the daughters looked just over the “I just got my driver’s license” age and the other one looked like she had a couple years to go before a license was in her hands. The girls reminded me of my younger sister and me at that age–but when we were growing up all the cool kids had VW Rabbit Cabriolets. I started wondering if the Fiat 500 would launch another teen revolution like the Rabbits did for my generation.
Fiat launched sales of the car in late 2010 and fell short of their sales goal for 2011 with some industry flak following the under-expected goal but I think the brand is just getting started and will make up for lost sales this year. They have a Parisian bred marketing officer who could quite possibly reignite the Euro passion the states had in the 80’s and they’re also launching a male-centric model soon. With their new ad agency Doner creating their TV ads, expect to watch what’s happening with the brand during the Super bowl games. With good gas mileage, a reasonable cost and a coolness factor, my bet is Fiats will be all over the parking lots of high schools and colleges soon.
