Smart brushes up marketing

Detroit — The Smart car was the canvas for edgy, urban art, and the auto show was its gallery this week.

That was the idea behind the exhibit of a Smart car covered with the brash images of New York-based Billy The Artist, whose "Urban Primitive Pop" styling can be seen in galleries, on watches and on walls the world over.

This week, the puzzle-like-designed car was on display at the Smart USA stand at the North American International Auto Show — perhaps more commonly perceived as a venue for the masculine simplicity of muscle cars. Visitors climbed in, shot photos and lingered to interact with the mural on wheels.

"What I think is great about it is it's something totally different," said the artist, Billy Miller. "With Smart cars, naturally, they look different from anything at the car shows…You have this psychedelic piece of art amid all these clean and shiny cars. It's a nice little sigh of relief."

The Smart art made its debut at the Gen Art SCOPE event in Miami in December at Art Basel, a show that hosts hundreds of galleries from all over the world.

Smart USA commissioned Miller and a handful of emerging artists to design four white Smarts as part of a revamped marketing campaign aimed at growing the U.S. fan base.

Miller began drawing on his blank canvas at the beginning of a five-day art show, using a specialized black paint marker and a finished mural next to the car as inspiration. Streams of guests interacted with the auto installation by using different-colored Sharpies and Miller's base lines as their guides. The other Smarts were covered with custom-designed wraps by artists Eric Hajjar, Meredith Rose, Lana Gomez and Damon Martin, all based in Los Angeles.

Smart, long-established in Europe, originally launched with heavy anticipation in the U.S. in 2008, according to Terry Wei, a spokeswoman for Smart USA.

In its first year in the States, the Smart car's sales peaked at 24,622, but slumped during the economic downturn. In 2010, Smart sold only 5,927 cars. Mercedes-Benz took over U.S. sales and marketing from the Penske Automotive Group in July, and the German luxury carmaker has worked to rebrand the car with a national ad campaign.

Last year, Smart approached arts and entertainment organization Gen Art, a group that helps promote emerging artists, and got the automaker connected with Miller and the others.

"We wanted people to really connect with a product on a more intimate level, not just on the surface," said Wei.The Smart installation impressed Evelyn Coves-Datson, 22, a University of Michigan student at the auto show who was "test riding" the art car.

"I think it's cool that people got the opportunity to share their own designs and show their own style," said the French and microbiology student. "I think it was definitely a good idea to get the community involved in something and sort of put an effort into something."

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