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Rhyan White Dr. Dietel-McLaughlin Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric 9 November 2012 You Can Teach Old Marketers New Tricks: Introducing Dachshunds into Electric Car Advertising

In the time of Global Warming we are pushing to find new ways of reducing greenhouse gases and find new sources of energy. Harmful emissions are released constantly and by many forms of energy use, but the emissions of the automobile are the very apparent and most talked about. To address the concern of automobile emissions engineers have designed and attempted to perfect many models of hybrid, electric, and carbonless cars. Sustaining the environment has recently become a focus in America now that the effects of global warming have become more apparent, and these variations of environmentally friendly cars have begun to sell more than they have in the past, but they are still not sold in abundance as one would expect. The companies that produce these cars do not have control of how easily implemented these cars are in to economy, or how the economy will actually adjust to these new cars, but the companies do have control over how these cars are presented. Advertisement is completely in the hands of the electric car companies, and the electric car companies only, and using this to their advantage could allow them to attract more consumers. Making a machine as complex as the electric car relatable to the public audience will make the product more approachable, and make consumers more likely to consider the product.

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Relaying a message of sustainability or car demographics within a thirty seconds commercial, or on a billboard on the street can prove to be a difficult task. Therefore, marketers of electric car companies should take a more simple approach and go for an appealing memorable advertisement strategy. A way to do this would be to incorporate a spokesperson or a memorable figure. Other car companies, such as the KIA Soul, have incorporated memorable figures within their commercial and have made their commercials, and in turn their products more memorable to their audiences. The KIA Soul uses dancing hamsters to attract their customers and upon seeing the commercial it is very easy to recall the company and the product accompanying the commercial. This tactic achieves the main goal of advertisement by making the product memorable and persuading consumers to buy it through the interest in the commercial and electric cars should strive for a similar strategy. Electric car marketers do not have to use talking hamsters, but a more memorable figure is needed to increase the interest in their product. There are many potential figures that electric cars can use to promote their product, but the incorporation of dogs, and specifically Dachshunds, would be a very successful match. Before oil was first discovered in the United States electric vehicles were one of the most common vehicles on the roads (Deal III). The vehicles were mass produced by many different automobile companies and were the top competitor among other vehicles powered by different sources of energy. This abundance in electric vehicles kept low levels of pollution as the cars had a minute amount of carbon dioxide emissions. However, in the late nineteenth century when oil was first struck in Titusville, Pennsylvania, the sources of energy that fueled cars began to change (Rhodes). The discovery of oil allowed automobiles to be made at a more affordable price because of how inexpensive oil was at the time, and this new affordability in oil powered vehicles started to drive electric vehicles out of the market. Ever since this occurrence electric

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vehicles have struggled to compete in the automobile industry. The oil powered vehicles may have been cheaper to make, but they had, and still have, a harsher effect on our environment in terms of automobile emissions. $Stat showing how much more emissions gas cars have more than electric cars$ After decades of using oil as fuel for automobiles the increased carbon dioxide emissions has finally shown a great negative effect on our environment. Electric cars have been trying to use this environmental crisis to their advantage to ease their way back into the automobile market, especially because their car is a more environmentally friendly option, but they have not been as successful as one would hope. One would think that the condition of our deteriorating environment would be enough to convince consumers to invest in a more environmentally friendly vehicle, but the change is not being made. According to the article Since 2011 Less Than 50,000 Electric Cars Sold in the year 2011 less than 50,000 electric vehicles were sold nationwide (Since 2011 Less Than 50,000 Electric Cars Sold). This shows that there is something that needs to be addressed in terms of electric cars marketing and advertisement. Currently electric cars use a more traditional form of advertisement, similar to any other car commercial one would see on TV. The advertisement plan of Chevys new hybrid car, Volt, falls suit as described by Rupal Parekh, editor of Advertising Age. The commercial is as expected for a regular vehicle she states that the advertisement strategy will be, A 30-second teasershowing a car driving down the highway (Parekh). This advertisement strategy is very bland, and it does not distinguish a hybrid or electric vehicle from any other type of car. This strategy does not capture the attention of the viewers, does not appeal to different audiences, and does not present anything unique about the electric vehicles. With this strategy its no wonder electric cars arent selling as well. Electric car

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marketers need to present something new in the automobile advertisement industry, and to do so marketers should use mans other best friends, dogs, as a new unique marketing strategy. Marketers might be skeptical about using dogs as an advertisement strategy because dogs do not appeal to all types of people. However, the commercials that they are currently using are bland. Car commercials are known for showing constant footage of the particular car driving around on different terrain. Because the commercials are the same it groups all of the vehicles together even though they have different qualities. Electric cars especially need to distinguish themselves because they offer something completely different than other gasoline powered vehicles using Dachshunds would definitely offer something new to make electric cars stand out. Also despite the fact that not everyone is fond of dogs the commercial would still attract attention because of its originality. It is not common to see an electric car associated with a wiener dog and the interesting pairing is more interesting than a car driving on the road. This immediate interest is especially important now that digital video recorders are (DVRs) are popular among households. DVRs allow people to fast forward through commercials and therefore the first impression of a commercial is more important because the viewers can easily avoid the commercial if they wanted to. The unique pairing of a dog and an electric vehicle being different is more likely to capture the attention of the audience as opposed to the clich car driving down the road. Incorporating dogs into the advertisement of may sound obscure, but the technique of incorporating animals into advertisement is not the first we have seen. May people are familiar with the Geico gecko; it is a very familiar icon to the company and upon seeing the gecko it is easy to recall the insurance company that goes along with it. The company that was initially skeptical about including a gecko into their commercial now are satisfied with the decision since

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it has proven to be successful not only on an advertisement level, but the gecko has also affected sales. According to an article written about Geicos gecko in USA Today two years after the inclusion of the gecko in their ads their insurance policy sales had increased by 2 million (Howard). The inclusion of the gecko also increased the popularity of the commercials. With the addition of the gecko 3 percent more customers liked the commercials compared to the ads without the gecko (Howard). The gecko proves to be evidence of how seemingly unrelated topics can increase popularity in a product. Ford Motors also attempted a marketing strategy with a seemingly unrelated figure to promote their hybrid SUV. In 2006, Ford launched a commercial in Canada during an auto show that used the Muppet, Kermit the Frog, to promote their new hybrid vehicles. The use of this popular childhood character surprisingly helped the sales of the SUV similar to the gecko in Geico, and the sales of the SUV increase from 3.1% in Canada to 3.3% (Watson). Both instances show that the figure whether it is an animal or a puppet can make a difference in advertisement, and dogs may not be like the Geico gecko and may not be as humorous as a puppet, but with their relationships with humans and surprisingly similar qualities to electric cars they will do the job. The popularity of dogs, as pets or even companions, has flourished in America. It has become very common to see a person walking a dog down the street, or people playing with dogs in the park, and because of this fact dogs are a great chance for electric cars to increase their amount of consumers through advertisement. The human dog relationship has always been showcased as something as something unique and desired; there have been stories of dogs saving their people from burning buildings to TV shows about owners and their inseparable relationship with their dogs. There have even been sitcoms idolizing this relationship. The show Lassie showed a relationship between a boy and his border collie, Lassie. The storyline of the show

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followed a pattern of the boy getting into perilous situations and countless times Lassie would come to his rescue and save him (Lassie (US)). This show modeled what we longed for and expected from the human dog relationship. The media continues to show how fond Americans are of this relationship. Movies such as Marley and Me and cartoons such a Scooby Doo continue to showcase strong relationships between humans and dogs. The human dog relationship is deeper than just a sweet relationship between a dog and an owner or a bond between a man and his best friends. This bond can actually be associated with biological processes within humans. Relationships have certain effects on the release of hormones into the body and the human dog relationship is linked with increased levels of the hormone oxytocin (Nagasawa, Kazutaka, Takefumi). Oxytocin is the hormone that controls emotions that are related to love, trust, and bonding(Higashida et al.). If electric car companies were to use dogs in their advertisement strategies upon seeing dog in the advertisement these emotions would arise in people and in turn these emotions would be linked with the product. Having this link would create a strong emotion with electric car and would encourage people to purchase a vehicle. The Dachshund is known as one of the most popular dog breeds in America. According to the book Dachshunds by Dr. Caroline Coile the American Kennel Club (AKC) has ranked Dachshunds as one of the top breeds in America since the 1940s (19). The Dachshund has recently been ranked among the top ten dog breeds, last year coming in 9th place (Skarda). This high popularity provides electric car marketers with a great opportunity to use this large human appeal as a rhetorical strategy to make their product more popular in the eyes of consumers. Using Dachshunds in advertisement would bring something new to electric car, as well as regular car, advertising, and this uniqueness would not only capture the attention of car and

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electric car fans, but it would also attract the attention of the dog lovers and everyday people because of featuring such a popular breed. Electric car advertising would in a sense be borrowing the status and popularity of the Dachshund to increase the popularity of their automobiles. In An Overview of Rhetoric James Herrick defines the art of rhetoric as, the systematic study and intentional practices of effective symbolic expression (7). And Herrick also defines a symbol as, a general term referring to any mark, sign, sound, or gesture that communicates meaning based on social agreement (5). In this case the Dachshund would be the symbol that marketers would use and the social agreement of the Dachshund is that it is a unique a popular breed would in turn give the electric car these qualities because of the way that the Dachshund would be used as symbolic expression in the advertisement of the vehicles. Not only will the Dachshund increase the popularity of electric cars in the eyes of the general public, but it is also a relatable to the actual product itself. This relatable aspect will provide the marketers a platform to base their advertisement strategies on. The Dachshund is a very unique breed when considering their shape, and it is hard to imagine that a dog with such small legs and a long body existed naturally. And the reason why that is so hard to believe is because the Dachshund was not naturally shaped in such a way. The Dachshund similar to electric cars were engineered to perform a particular task. In the late 1700s the Dachshunds first appeared in Germany, they were used by foresters to hunt for badgers (Coile 1). Badgers lived in small holes underground and it was difficult for other dogs to fit in these holes to evacuate the badgers. The Germans needed a dog with a long back and short legs to crawl through the holes to remove the badgers. There were no dogs that existed that met these qualifications, so German breeders genetically engineered the Dachshund through selective breeding to achieve these specific needs (Adamson 27). To do this they selected breeds of dogs that had some of the

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qualities that they needed and cross bred the two types together, and then chose the dogs that showed the best qualities and bred them together.

After many different attempts of crossbreeding they achieved the long back and short kegs that they needed to hunt the badgers, and the Dachshund was born(Adamson 27). Similarly, electric cars were engineered to have a different source of energy to fuel our cars that released less carbon dioxide emissions. They also used a similar method as the breeding of the Dachshunds. The revival of Electric cars in this century started off as hybrid cars which are a mix between electric powered cars and electric powered cars, and it had the features of both an electric car and a gasoline car. These cars were able to use energy provided by the gasoline and if one wanted to switch they could use the energy from the electricity power of the car. This eventually evolved into a vehicle that was able to be powered fully on electricity. In a way this method is similar to the cross breeding method of the Dachshund.

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This similarity could be the basis of the electric car and Dachshund commercial. Using this technical aspect will also provide a different point of view for car advertisement, and making this connection between the engineering aspect of the Dachshund and the electric car is nothing that has been done before and the unique perspective will capture the attention of the audience because it is a fresh new idea. Electric cars have been trying to make a comeback in our automobile industry. With the recent downturn in our economy the power of persuasion plays a very important role in making such a large purpose as a car. The lack of sales of electric cars show that the companies are lacking in this area and it is necessary that there is an improvement in advertisement and marketing to improve the sales of the car. Marketers are continuing to use the old strategy of featuring the car and attempting to showcase it through footage of the vehicle driving through or on various terrains, but sales show that this method is not working. Incorporating dog, specifically Dachshunds, into their advertisement provides them with a new interesting idea that will reach out to audiences of multiple ages and interests, and will offer something different between the electric car and the regular gasoline cars. The power of persuasion is strong when it

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comes to making decision and purchases, and marketers should really consider that fact when choosing advertisement strategies. This new perspective can offer marketers of electric car companies the advertising push that they need to get their sales back on track.

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Works Cited Adamson, Eve. Dachshunds for Dummies, Second Edition. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley Pub., 2008. Print. Coile, D. Caroline. Dachshunds. Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series, 2009. Print. Deal III, Walter F. "Going Green with Electric Vehicles." Technology & Engineering Teacher 70.3 (2010): 5-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Nov. 2012. Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Introduction. Boston: Allyn and Beacon, 2005. Print. Howard, Theresa. "Gecko Wasn't First Choice for Geico." USA Today 17 July 2006: n. pag. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. Higashida, H., O. Lopatina, T. Yoshihara, Y. A. Pichugina, A. A. Soumarokov, T. Munesue, Y. Minabe, M. Kikuchi, Y. Ono, N. Korshunova, and A. B. Salmina. "Oxytocin Signal and Social Behaviour: Comparison among Adult and Infant Oxytocin, Oxytocin Receptor and CD38 Gene Knockout Mice." Journal of Neuroendocrinology 22.5 (2010): 373-79. Print.

"Lassie (US)." Lassie TV Show Syndicated. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://www.tvrage.com/Lassie_US>. Nagasawa, Miho, Kazutaka Mogi, and Takefumi Kikusui. "Attachment between Humans and Dogs." Japanese Psychological Research 51.3 (2009): 209-21. Print.

Parekh, Rupal. "Green-Car Marketers Revving Up In Race For Eco-Friendly Drivers." Advertising Age 81.31 (2010): 10-11. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.

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Rhodes, Richard. "The Power of Power." History Today 62.8 (2012): 37-42. Academic Search Premier. Web. 4 Nov. 2012. "Since 2011 Less than 50,000 Electric Cars Sold." SFGate. Hearst Communications Inc., 16 Oct. 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Since-2011-lessthan-50-000-electric-cars-sold-3954147.php?cmpid=emailarticle>. Skarda, Erin. "Americas 10 Most Popular Dog Breeds." TIME.com. Time Inc., 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/02/29/americas-10-most-populardog-breeds/slide/9-dachshund/>. Watson, Thomas. "Exposing Hybrid Hype." Canadian Business 79.5 (2006): 11-12. Academic Search Premier. Web. 2 Nov. 2012.