Many French Web sites these days carry a link to a site called "Must Be 18 to Enter," which features a warning -- against a backdrop of boudoir-like pink silk -- that it "contains adult images."A Renault Twingo rests on silk sheets, its headlights shielded by star-shaped pasties, in an image from a risque ad campaign under way in France. Anyone hoping to get a peek at some porn is bound to be disappointed. Those who click on the link end up on a site promoting the Twingo, a car made by France's Renualt, which wants to give the vehicle a racier image.
The Twingo is shown resting atop a pile of pink and red silk sheets. A window pops up, and asks: "The Twingo wants to chat with you, do you accept?" The Twingo follows up with a more-suggestive invitation, "Come, I want to see you!"
The risqué campaign is an attempt to cope with a flagging car market and looming downturn in Europe. Car sales could suffer further if the current financial crisis makes it harder for people to get loans.
Renault hopes the Web site and accompanying TV and print ads will make its small, economical -- and not all that exciting -- Twingo model sexy.
The campaign is part of a broader effort by Renault to overhaul its image. The Twingo is the kind of car that appeals to many first-time buyers, and Renault hopes it can help the company develop brand loyalty in younger consumers. Twingo sales in France jumped 17% in September, the month the campaign started.
Renault's two TV ads, which started mid-September, feature potentially awkward family moments. In one, a young man, driving a black Twingo at night with his pals, sees his father -- dressed as a drag queen -- filing into a nightclub. The son at first looks shocked.
But the tension is soon resolved. "Hey Dad!" the son calls out cheerily. "Can you get us in?"
The ad uses the tagline "We live in modern times," suggesting that the world of the Twingo is fun, liberated and at ease with itself.
The commercial is a departure for Renault, which is known for making economical cars for Europe's masses. The auto maker has long had a sensible, even staid image.
Renault's cars are "a bit too safe and me-too," says Jay Nagley, managing director of Spyder Automotive, a London-based auto-industry consulting firm. "Their cars are perfectly logical," he says. "But they don't have enough emotional appeal, at a time when some of their competitors have been able to combine both."
To address that problem, Renault Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn hired Stephen Norman last year as Renault's director of global marketing. Mr. Norman, who previously headed global marketing for Italy's Fiat, believed Renault could boost its sales if it inspired a more playful and seductive feeling in consumers. He was following in the steps of competitors, like Fiat's retro-looking 500 and BMW's Mini, which had built strong brands with retro design and savvy marketing.
"We needed to get a bit more modern in our image and marketing," says Mr. Norman. "The [Twingo] ads are an elegant way to be subversive," he says.
The ads were designed byPublic Groups Renault's longtime agency. The creative team at Publicis had to walk a fine line between two very different target demographics: women with families and young, single men.
It was hard to attract one without turning off the other, says Olivier Altmann, international creative director at Publicis Conseil. "We decided to look for what they both had in common," he says.
The team came up with the idea of depicting the Twingo as the car for people in step with the times.
The second TV ad in the campaign features a mother driving her teenage daughter in a Twingo, and pulling up in front of a billboard. The billboard is advertising a cabaret, and features a huge photograph of a topless woman in pink panties and silk gloves but little else.
The daughter looks stunned -- it's her picture on the billboard, and her mother has just discovered what she gets up to at night.
Instead of freaking out, her mother turns to her, smiles proudly, and says: "What? You mean you found a job and didn't even tell me?"
For now, the ads are running only in France, where sexual imagery in ads and other media tends to be widely accepted. The ads have scored with French focus groups, and Renault plans to roll them out across Europe in January.
Mr. Nagley, the auto industry consultant, says Renault is on the right track with the Twingo campaign. But he questions whether an edgy ad campaign by itself can make up for the Twingo's somewhat bland design, compared with competing models with more adventurous design like the Fiat 500 and Ford motor company recently launched Fiesta.
"The risk is that Renault is trying to inject emotional appeal into a car that doesn't intrinsically have any," Mr. Nagley says. "If the product isn't right, then the best ad campaign in the world won't save it in the long run."
