Packard missed many chances to display quality in its cars and its advertising. This isn’t enough to explain their failure; more likely they should have done the smart niche switch after WW2. Their unique skill at that point was aircraft, not autos. Cadillac OWNED the luxury market, so there was no room for another luxury brand.
Here’s a cheap ad from the mid-50s, accidentally showing a cheap feature of the car. Note the skewed radio:
And here’s an example of cutting corners, or more precisely NOT cutting corners, on the car itself.
Everyone else, including Nash and Hudson, spent the money to form up a rounded body section and a rounded trunk lid.
Here’s a new example from the advertising department.
This 1939 dealer training film was peculiarly devoted to servicing NYC tourists who came for the World’s Fair. Seems like a very small set of temporary customers, not worth a half hour movie production. After they spent money on this dubious bit of training, they cheaped out on the actors. The script is well written, but the actors must have been ordinary Packard employees. Their wooden toneless reading destroys the casual effect intended by the writers, and turns the whole film into a classic bit of cruel humor. The workers who were forced to watch this crap must have felt mocked and demeaned.
Contrast this with Chevy’s Hollywood-quality newsreels and training films from the same period. Chevy hired Jam Handy’s production company.
Packard could have salvaged this project at fairly low cost by asking a local radio station to provide the voiceovers, since the actors weren’t live on camera. Larger radio stations wrote and performed their own drama series, and they would have been happy to pick up a little extra work.
Polistra's Mill 