Prior to releasing the 2018 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, Fiat Chrysler released 13 teaser videos for the car over the course of a few months.
The teasers, along with the Demon’s cameo in and the impressive spectacle that was its New York City launch event, helped make the Demon one of the most talked about cars of 2017. Just 3,000 copies of the 840 horsepower Demon will be built, so Dodge probably would have had no trouble selling all of them without the high-profile ad campaign. It didn’t go through all that trouble just to help sell the Demon, however.
The entire Demon project, from the ad campaign to the car itself, was essentially one big marketing scheme for the Challenger nameplate, and it’s definitely paid off. So far in 2017, Challenger sales are up 4.5 percent year-over-year. In August, sales were up 18.8 percent compared to August 2016. In fact, the 6,253 Challengers Dodge moved in August made it the most popular pony car in America, with the much more up-to-date Mustang and Camaro recording 5,535 and 5,017 sales, respectively. Through to last month, the Challenger is seeing its best year-to-date sales ever.
“We haven’t built the first (Demon) yet, but people have been talking about this car since January,” FCA’s passenger car brand boss, Tim Kuniskis, told in a recent interview. “So the hype has been building and selling other Challengers. Our Challenger sales are through the roof. We’re having an all-time record year to date.”
“(The Demon is) selling SRTs and Scat Packs and regular Hellcats,” he added. “We built the Demon to cement the image of what the brand is in peoples’ minds. And this is what we want our attitude to be seen as.”
SEE ALSO: New FCA Trademark Hints at Something Completely Opposite of the Demon
This marketplace performance is especially impressive when you consider the age of the Challenger relative to its competition. The muscle coupe went back into production in 2008 and received a major refresh for the 2015 model year, but remains on the same Daimler-sourced LX platform and with the same 3.6-liter V6, 5.7-liter V8 and 6.4-liter V8 engine options it did in 2011. Dodge has managed to keep it relevant with the 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat variant and now the Demon, showing Ford and Chevy that you don’t necessarily need an all-new car with a more capable chassis and up-to-date engines to attract buyers – you just need a little hype and an attractive halo model.
[Source: The Detroit News]
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