• Detroit Free-Press, Wednesday, October 11, 2006 1 PM

Patti LaBelle's 14-city "The Gospel According to Patti" tour kicks off in Dallas on Saturday with the Aspen, Chrysler's new luxury SUV, as its title sponsor. Affluent, urban African-American customers are one of the upscale SUV's target markets. Urban mega-churches are a great way to reach a large number of people in that target audience, says Judy Smith, a partner at Impact Media, the event-promotions company that pitched the LaBelle tour to Chrysler. The churches on the LaBelle tour have as many as 30,000 members each, and boast sophisticated methods for getting messages out, including Web pages.

Chrysler will take the Aspen to churches in seven cities a week before the concert to let parishioners ride in and drive the SUVs. The new luxury vehicle will also be outside the churches in advance of all the concerts. It also will get some mileage from ads during a LaBelle holiday concert special on BET and other cable networks, and from radio spots.

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