Persuasive Campaign for a Hellcat
Background

If you want a fast car, yes, you could buy Tesla—but you wouldn’t be getting everything that goes with a fast car. You wouldn’t be getting the sound. You wouldn’t be getting the motor revving, driving your neighbors crazy every time you hit the gas pedal and hold with the stick in neutral just so you can hear the growl of a nice big V8 under the hood. A Tesla is not going to do that. A Tesla is an electric car. Yes, Tesla’s have instant torque—but they also tend to blow up on impact and burn their drivers to death. Golf cart bombs should not be lumped into the category of fast cars. A car runs on gas. A Tesla runs on batteries. This distinction is important. If you want a fast car, a real fast car—a car that has muscle and isn’t ashamed to show it, there’s really only one car to get: the Dodge Challenger Hellcat.

The Hellcat gets 700 horsepower. That is raw power ready to launch you from 0 to 60 in under 4 seconds. It comes in an automatic transmission or with a manual, but there’s really only one way to drive the Hellcat—and that is to get it with a manual transmission. When you are shifting from third gear into fourth and you’re already at 60 mph, you will understand why. Yes, 700 hp may seem like too much, but the Hellcat is a hefty machine weighing some 4,500 pounds. It’s not a BMW M3. It’s not a compact car. It’s a monster beast unleashed from the furnaces of Dodge’s inferno. It was meant to be large and in charge. Those 700 horses are exactly what are needed to muscle that machine around. And the Hellcat is all muscle. As far as all Hellcat owners are concerned, it is the only muscle car that matters. Your tires will spin, your car will slip, and you will fear for your life when driving it. But that is the whole point. This car gets 700 horsepower: it is not supposed to be a picnic.

What Is Going Well in the Campaign

The Hellcat helped to transform the Dodge brand. Phelan (2016) states that “the supercharged Hellcat V-8s have become an icon for the whole Dodge brand, starring in raucous commercials and posters on teenagers’ walls in a way not seen since the original Charger lifted Dodge from suburban bland to outlaw chic 50 years ago.” Most people assumed it would be undrivable but all popular opinion has pointed just the opposite: it is a very drivable car. People love it.

The campaign to get people to buy the Hellcat was going great. It was the top of the line muscle car coming in at $60k—lower than a high-priced Tesla or a BMW M5, with a better growl than the EV and a better interior than the German sports car. The Hellcat was the meanest machine on the market—until its older brother arrived: the Dodge Demon. It boasted 800-1000 horsepower and was not even street legal. It was a track car only. Still, it overshadowed the Hellcat. It made the Hellcat seem like a kitty. The Demon let the world know who was boss. Hellcat prices across the board began to fall. What started off as...…get the Hellcat some excellent positive exposure. The Fast and the Furious franchise is another great opportunity, as it routinely features muscle cars. Indeed, Dodge has already linked up with filmmakers to work on just that. The latest Fate of the Furious featured a wide-body Hellcat in its trailer, as Car and Driver reported (Fink, 2016). This kind of positive advertising is just what the Hellcat needs to keep its reputation going strong and to cement its iconic imagery in the minds of consumers.

Dodge has not had any problems moving the Hellcat and demand for the car has been through the roof—so much so that the company had to double its production numbers (Phelan, 2016). Now that some bad press and some competition from within its own Challenger line has come along, the Hellcat has to be put before the eyes of the public in more and more positive ways. It should be used to promote events like the X-Games, and it could be used as a loaner vehicle for celebrities arriving at the red carpet of movie premiers, just like VW did when it reintroduced the Bug to the market.

The Hellcat is a car that muscle car lovers will continue to want—but to keep the wrong kind of ideas from being associated with this car, Dodge has to work double time on its campaign. Street races on YouTube can give it a bad reputation and make people think twice about buying it. Playing up the safer aspects and more economical qualities of the car (like the fact that the automatic actually gets good gas mileage) can help—and more articles should be put out by that via Dodge’s…