DETROIT — The photographs of the hulking, yellow, four-wheeled monster are crisp, edgy and look more like prints hung in a gallery instead of a magazine.

        The accompanying copy ranges from faux threat to blunt force to sweet revenge and snarky utilitarianism with lines such as: “Threaten the men in your office a whole new way,” “You give us the money, we give you the truck and nobody gets hurt,” and “When the asteroid hits and civilization crumbles, you'll be ready.”

        Such extreme rhetoric and images are what the Hummer unit of General Motors Corp. believes it will take to sell an extreme type of vehicle — the $50,000 Hummer H2 reaching dealerships this week.

        “Our goal is within five seconds you get that it's a Hummer ad,” Liz Vanzura, Hummer advertising director, said this week at a preview of the ad campaign.

        While admitting Hummer is not a mass-market brand, Vanzura said GM is trying to sell more vehicles with the Hummer name than have ever been made available to the general public.

        Barely more than 700 of the larger, more expensive Hummer H1's are sold each year.

        The H2, however, is built on a GM truck platform and marks the automaker's first product with the Hummer name since GM bought the marketing rights to the brand from South Bend, Ind.-based AM General in 1999.

        Research by GM and Detroit advertising firm Modernista found that Hummer brand awareness was relatively strong at 44 percent of those surveyed, but advertising awareness was almost nil, and only about 5 percent of those surveyed said they would even consider buying a Hummer.

        The strategy, then, was to come up with an edgy campaign to raise both advertising awareness and consumer consideration, while appealing to Hummer's core market of groups labeled “rugged individualists,” “successful achievers” and “style leaders,” Vanzura said.

        While the H1's military image is a sortie into the male market, the more civilized H2 has women who fit into one of the three categories in its crosshairs as well.

        In one print ad, a twist on a moniker that denotes busy but grounded moms takes it up a notch with the line, “perfect for rugby moms.”

        Television and print advertising campaign will also retain the tag line the company has been using for several months: “Like nothing else.”

        The trick, Vanzura said, is to convey the concept that the H2 is “tough, rugged and premium,” a combination she says is lacking in other, mass-market sport utility vehicles.

        It may work, said Chris Cedergren of the automotive marketing company Nextrend Inc.

        “What they're trying to do is remove the harshness and keep it in some way more sophisticated, but they have to be careful not to go too far where they remove the major mystique of Hummer,” he said.

        No chance of that, Vanzura said. Above all, GM is guarding Hummer's reputation as the toughest thing on four wheels, which is why there's no soft sell for this vehicular hard body.

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