Businesses offer security to make the sale

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - Consumers would shop more if they weren't so worried about losing their jobs. Or so goes the thinking behind an increase in marketing campaigns aimed at taking the risk out of spending.

From cars to suits, airline tickets to gym memberships, companies are gearing their advertisements toward people who have been recently laid off or fear they may soon be in the unemployment line. The tactic, started most notably by carmaker Hyundai in January, allows retailers to clear inventory while sending a message to consumers that merchants feel their pain.

Hyundai Motor America garnered widespread attention when it began the year with a program that allows consumers to return any new Hyundai leased or financed in 2009 if the owners lose their jobs.

The carmaker expanded the deal in February, offering to pick up car payments for 90 days to help qualified customers keep their car as they look for work. On Tuesday Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. jumped on the bandwagon. Dearborn, Mich.-based Ford is offering to make payments up to $700 a month for a year on any new Ford, Lincoln or Mercury vehicle. Detroit-based GM will make up to nine payments of up to $500 per month in the first two years of ownership.

With consumer confidence near its lowest point in more than 40 years, the moves could shake consumers out of their funk.

"When new cars show up in the neighborhood, it may trigger the thought, 'If they're buying a new car, maybe I will too,'" said Scott Bedbury, CEO of Seattle-based Brandstream. "That's how Americans are."

It may be working for Hyundai, which reports sales are up 4.9 percent on the year, with the latest numbers due out Wednesday. Spokesman Chris Hosford said that none of the cars have been returned yet but cited that program as one reason for the increase.

Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. started a "risk-free suit" campaign last month that will refund the price of a suit up to $199 for customers who lose their jobs _ and the customer keeps the suit. The campaign, which ends July 1, is the first time the 104-year-old men's apparel company has tied a promotion to the job market, in spite of surviving the Depression and countless recessions.

JetBlue has a similar deal for airline tickets. The YMCA is offering to waive membership fees for one to three months at many of its 2,686 facilities nationwide. And Walgreen Co. said Tuesday that its Take Care Health Systems, which operate clinics in many of its drugstores, will provide free services to patients who lose their jobs and don't have health insurance. It starts Wednesday and runs through the end of the year.

Make this Christmas Extra Special with the Gift of Faith

Sometimes just asking for help is all that is needed. FranklinCovey gave day planners to laidoff workers last month after Tony Kripas, a Darien, Ill., resident and former worker at an auto dealer, sent an e-mail to the company's CEO saying members of his job club could no longer afford the $50 planners but wish they could. That sparked a national give-away.

"If you're in a job transition, you have to grab for all the gusto you can," Kripas said. "I'm just waiting for (Apple Inc. CEO) Steve Jobs to say I've got a new Mac computer coming. Today, nothing will surprise me."

With the U.S. unemployment rate at 8.1 percent, the highest since 1983, and economists forecasting that it could rise to 10 percent by the end of the year, companies think they can get attention by turning fear of unemployment into a marketing message.

Skeptics say these deals feed on anxiety. But, advertising historian Jackson Lears said the ads are a far cry from the scare tactics during the Depression.

It was common then to find ads like one for thermal underwear where a middle-age, gray-haired, grim-faced man sits on the edge of his bed in a thermal undershirt as a tagline suggested his job is in danger.

"The implication was if you didn't wear this underwear, you would catch cold, get the flu, miss work and get fired," said Lears, a history professor at Rutgers University. "That is how twisted the appeals were in the '30s. They shamelessly played on the fear and anxiety of poverty and joblessness."

In that light, Lears said, the latest marketing campaigns "seem to be real progress."

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© 2009, Chicago Tribune.