Yahoo Autos Chicago Auto Show sees daylight to score as the 'super' car show
The Chicago Auto Show finds itself in a good spot thanks to a couple of things fortuitously moving in its favor. With the Super Bowl later than ever — it now falls on Valentine’s Day weekend — and the Detroit Auto Show retrenching in the fall, the Chicago show enviably stands alone as a winter marketing opportunity for carmakers.
Look at what Ram did. On Thursday, the company announced that its electric pickup will be called the 1500 REV. About 72 hours later, its Super Bowl spot dropped, highlighting the dangers of ‘premature electrification.’ After trailing Ford, GM and Tesla in the electric truck race, Ram immediately told its story to millions and took a dig at its rivals.
You can’t draw it up any better than that. Perhaps other automakers will follow suit, using the Chicago show to preview strategy and then the Super Bowl to explain it to the public.
Simply by hanging on, Chicago is in a decent position. There is no major auto show between Los Angeles in late fall and New York in early spring. CES in January comes and goes as an event that automakers care about, and Detroit’s move to September clears the deck for winter reveals, should automakers still want to promote their products early in the year..
Chicago has always bragged about being the “nation’s largest auto show,” a tenuous claim based on the cavernous square footage of the McCormick Place rather than the significance of its reveals. But it's a huge consumer show, and a lot of people attend with an eye on buying their next car. That has allowed it to remain relevant in the Midwest while offering a stage for automakers.
The Super Bowl used to be played in January, and the Detroit Auto Show used to be the Super Bowl of new car reveals. Neither of those things are true anymore. Through luck and circumstance, the Chicago Auto Show suddenly finds itself in a nice spot.
