Fiat Chrysler’s embrace of music as the company’s favorite marketing platform, and its leadership of the auto industry in doing so, deepened on Sunday evening with its second consecutive year of automotive sponsorship of the American Music Awards on ABC.
Capitalizing on the partnership, the automaker collaborated with the world’s three largest music companies—Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony Music—to present a trio of TV commercials celebrating some of the recording industry’s hottest stars—and a few of its own.
“Music and the AMAs are part of this moment where you can build or add some relevance to our message, because there’s nothing less ‘relevant’ than a car commercial—for that, our whole marketing investment will be relatively inefficient,” Fiat Chrysler CMO Olivier Francois told brandchannel. “We want to add relevance, connected tissue—glue that will do something for you, so that even if you’re not in the car market today, you’ll watch the commercial.”
Each spot won’t air on TV again, but are viewable on YouTube.The highlight: the 90-second commercial above with Atlantic Records singer songwriter and producer Charlie Puth with a unique multi-genre reinterpretation of his hit single, One Call Away. The video remix features CMA “New Artist of the Year” Brett Eldredge, singer-producer Ty Dolla $ign and Mexican pop singer and songwriter Sofia Reyes.
Can’t wait to perform on the #AMAs tonight and #DriveTheBeat with @tydollasign @bretteldredge @sosofiareyes!
— Charlie Puth (@charlieputh) November 22, 2015
A longer version of the “Coast to Coast Mix” video is posted on Puth’s YouTube channel:
Shot in American locales including Nashville and Nevada, each scene in the video leverages a different vehicle from the Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram and Fiat brands, including the Chrysler 200, the Dodge Challenger, the Dodge Charger, Ram Rebel, the new Fiat 500X and its sibling vehicle under the Jeep brand, the new Renegade.
We salute the music industry’s brightest new stars including @torylanez. #AMAs #DriveTheBeat
https://t.co/WFr7dcZxDH— Dodge (@Dodge) November 23, 2015
FCA’s second spot during the American Music Awards was “Rising Stars,” a minute-long video featuring up-and-comers signed to Interscope Records: BØRNS, Tory Lanez, Skylar Grey and Pia Mia.
Finally, a 30-second spot titled “Sing” features Sony Music Group a cappella group Pentatonix (who also performed a Star Wars tribute during the AMAs) and the Fiat brand:
The automaker is also behind such hit music-based TV commercials and marketing campaigns as the iconic Eminem appearance in the “Imported From Detroit” (aka “Born Of Fire”) commercial that debuted during the 2011 Super Bowl to Jeep’s ad campaign with indie band X Ambassadors to launch the Renegade earlier this year.
Francois and his team “understand the power that music has to move culture and connect people to products,” said Mike Caren, president of Worldwide AR for Warner Music Group.
“Together, we’ve produced something innovative and unique that takes both FCA’s brands and Charlie Puth’s amazing song in a whole new direction,” Caren added.
The ongoing collaboration between Fiat Chrysler and New York and Hollywood’s top music labels has pushed the automaker’s presence in official YouTube music videos featuring product integration to a record 3.3 billion views and climbing.
Besides music overall, for Fiat Chrysler’s Francois, the AMAs play stemmed from his “love [for] high-value properties,” he told brandchannel. “The AMAs is one of them, and that’s when people want music — not sports not movies, and they surely don’t want car commercials. They want music.”