X Factor Marks the Spot for Chevrolet

Not surprisingly, General Motors has confirmed that Chevrolet will be its brand occupying the major sponsorship slot with Fox’s new show, The X Factor, when the heavily anticipated new Simon Cowell property debuts this fall.

And while Chevy has had a hard time one-upping Ford in a lot of areas lately — such as infotainment technology and social-media marketing — X Factor actually may give Chevrolet a chance to steal a march on its main rival in the crucial arena of integrated brand marketing.

Details are still being worked out, of course, but one thing that seems clear is that Chevrolet will have a much better opportunity to place its brand and vehicles throughout X Factor telecasts than Ford has been able to do with its long-running key sponsorship of American Idol.

While Chevrolet will be the exclusive auto brand on the show, depending on how prominent Chevy is in a particular episode or stretch of X Factor, other auto brands will be able to advertise. And PepsiCo is the exclusive lead sponsor of the show, outranking any junior partners including GM.

The way the show is organized, Ad Age reports, Chevy will be placed in a variety of different settings as, for example, judges are ferried among locations to coach contestants. That will allow Chevrolet to showcase many different vehicles and also its own infotainment technology, an area where it’s important for GM’s biggest brand to demonstrate that it’s catching up to or surpassing Ford’s Sync.

By contrast, while Ford is one of the trio of primary brand sponsors of Idol — along with Coca-Cola and AT&T — its chances to show off Ford vehicles and technology are more limited.

In contrast with The X Factor, Idol is almost entirely played out on stage. That means Ford placements largely have been restricted to the “music videos” produced each week during the last several weeks of Idol and a handful of other occasions, such as this season’s giveaway of Ford vehicles during the finale.

So will Chevy perform “like a rock” in its new partnership? Or does Ford still have “a better idea”?