Suzuki’s latest advertising efforts are centering around the “Live Large. Drive Small” advertising campaign, which kicked off with the SUVasaurus commercial. The commercial is cute, comical, and truly well-executed, but Suzuki missed its chance to entice people to run to their nearest Suzuki dealer to by a Grand Vitara.
First, SUVs are not gone, and they won’t be any time soon. At the recent LA Auto Show, the emphasis may have been on glamorous new concepts and models like the MINI E or the Nissan 370Z, there certainly was no shortage of SUVs. While we’re likely to see more hybrids and more flex fuel variations, production of the SUV simply didn’t just come to a halt overnight as the whimsical commercial would like consumers to believe.
The other component of the SUVasaurus commercial that inhibits its ability to truly win over crossover shoppers is the timing. If this commercial aired over the summer, when the price of gas soared to nearly $5 per gallon in many parts of the country, the Suzuki’s SUVasaurus message would have likely resonated with many more drivers. But since then, the national gas price average has dropped to about $1.80 and is expected to keep on dropping. In fact, the average price of gas is likely to be lower than the price shown in the beginning of the commercial by this time next week!
Although consumers certainly aren’t flocking to big truck-based SUVs, Suzuki’s SUVasaurus ad missed its window of opportunity to stand out from the crowd. Sadly the timing doesn’t allow the Grand Vitara to really show how it not only offers an attractive alternative to larger SUVs, but that it also offers something fun and rugged when compared to the tough competition within its class, such as the Honda CR-V, Toyota RAV4, and NIssan Rogue. The commercial is by no means a failure, but it just proves that timing is everything. Check out the SUVasaurus commercial below.
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It may not be a SUVasaurus, but the Suzuki Grand Vitara doesn’t disappoint those who want to live large and drive small.
