# License plates in car adverts
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 12, 2016, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319 "2016-10-12T08:53:22Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/1 "2016-10-12T08:53:22Z")
I’ve recently noticed that in nearly every (US-market) car commercial I’ve ever seen, the vehicle displayed has a single license plate in the rear position only. Furthermore, the plate carries only a set of stamped letters/numbers (no state ID) and is always painted exactly the same color as the vehicle on which it is mounted.
It seems unlikely that it’s a real registration, and the plates are so close to invisible that it seems pointless to even bother having them. The only thing I can figure is that there’s either some regulation involved, or some focus-group data that says viewers are somehow disturbed if the car they see in the commercial has no plate at all. Anyone know what’s up with this?
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### Author:  [@Alley\_Dweller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alley_Dweller)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/2 "2016-10-12T10:32:54Z")
Often, but not always, in national ads they will ad a tag at the end like “For great deals like this see your Poughkeepsie Oldsmobile dealer today!” Or they may want to use the same footage in local ads. It wouldn’t be right to have California plates in an ad for New York dealerships.
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### Author:  [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/3 "2016-10-12T12:20:57Z")
I don’t know about regulations, but it’s usually ugly if you take the plate off, since that area is not meant to be exposed – you can see the threaded inserts for the screws that hold it on, sometimes there is a bit of foam tape to dampen vibration, etc. Much better to cover that up, and they do so in a way that is not distracting from the overall look, with a basic stamped generic plate painted in the body color.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/4 "2016-10-12T12:26:47Z")
[Thread from 2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=228529)
> [@Car commercial license plates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-commercial-license-plates/218266/5):
>
> Ad man here.
>
> We put plates on the cars because the cars would look strange without them.
>
> We use neutral colors for the plates so as not to distract your attention from the car/action/scenery.
> [@Car commercial license plates](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/car-commercial-license-plates/218266/9):
>
> The decision about whether to use a front plate is made on a case-by-case basis. If you’re doing a _national_ TV spot, you probably wouldn’t use one since, as you point out, it would look strange to some viewers. If, on the other hand, you’re shooting a _regional_ TV spot, you would follow the local custom.
>
> In a print piece, unlike in broadcast, you can only show a portion of the vehicle. If you’re showing the back end, you’d use a plate. If you’re showing the front end, you usually do not place a plate UNLESS your ad’s concept involves delivering some message via the plate’s letters. Like if you were nose-on and tight with a Pontiac and the front plate said “ZoomZoom,” or whatever.
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### Author:  [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/5 "2016-10-12T12:43:54Z")
> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> [Thread from 2003](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=228529)
And as usual the SDMB delivers. Thanks.
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/6 "2016-10-12T13:34:07Z")
I’m unsure about the protocol. Are new posts supposed to go in this thread, or the more complete 2003 one that has now been referenced?
Anyway, I disagree with the thinking that a real license plate would be adversely distracting in some way. Most people see real plates so often in their everyday environment, that a fake plate on a car in an ad screams “fake” as loudly as a 555 phone number, and jolts the viewer out of his nest of escape. A nest that producers are very careful, in other respects, to preserve, because they depend on the audience being diverted from their everyday life to the make-believe one of the media. People are more observant than the admen give them credit for. (Or, maybe, just I am.)
BTW, roasdside highway signage is always fake, too, because they don’t want viewers to be able to identify the exact location of the shooting. Probably for the same reason the don’t want cars to associated with a certain state. It makes no sense, because commercials are often pointedly depicting scenes in a western desert, a southern swamp or a bucolic New England village, so what is the harm in exposing plates from appropriate states?
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/7 "2016-10-12T15:33:42Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> It makes no sense, because commercials are often pointedly depicting scenes in a western desert, a southern swamp or a bucolic New England village, so what is the harm in exposing plates from appropriate states?
Just guessing, but most people probably don’t know what license plates look like from a state that is far away. If a Californian saw a Vermont license plate, he wouldn’t think, “look, a Vermont license plate”, he’d think “what the hell is that?” It would be distracting.
–Mark
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/8 "2016-10-12T15:41:56Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#):
>
> I’ve recently noticed that in nearly every (US-market) car commercial I’ve ever seen, the vehicle displayed has a single license plate in the rear position only. Furthermore, the plate carries only a set of stamped letters/numbers (no state ID) and is always painted exactly the same color as the vehicle on which it is mounted.
Do the production companies actually paint the license plates? I assumed they did so electronically.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2016, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/9 "2016-10-12T21:14:49Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#):
>
> And as usual the SDMB delivers. Thanks.
Except that Zoom-Zoom is Mazda’s tagline rather than Pontiac’s.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/10 "2016-10-13T00:11:53Z")
One thing I’ve also seen in ads are blurred plates, and ocassionally an obviously contrived vanity plate like Z00M or STANG or 2016XLR.
Back when many US-market cars still came with a mount for a front plate factory-standard, dealers around here ( a rear-plate-only market) would put their own promo plate on the front mount.
(These days I wonder if it ever will happen that either the several states finally give up on front plates, or the carmakers start again designing front ends that take into account from the start that you may have to hang a plate)
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2016, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/11 "2016-10-13T00:15:13Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Do the production companies actually paint the license plates? I assumed they did so electronically.
I think a can of Krylon is faster and cheaper than CGI.
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### Author:  [@SpeedwayRyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpeedwayRyan)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2016, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/12 "2016-10-13T01:21:45Z")
> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> I think a can of Krylon is faster and cheaper than CGI.
A quickly growing percentage of car ads are CGI. As in, there’s no actual car involved (or, in the case of the link below, there’s a basic physical rig involved that the CGI car gets placed on). So not only is the plate CGI, the rest of the car is as well:
[http://jalopnik.com/how-they-shoot-a-car-commercial-without-the-actual-car-1782499530](http://jalopnik.com/how-they-shoot-a-car-commercial-without-the-actual-car-1782499530)
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2016, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/license-plates-in-car-adverts/768319/13 "2016-10-14T21:57:49Z")
> [@jtur88](#):
>
> Most people see real plates so often in their everyday environment, that a fake plate on a car in an ad screams “fake” as loudly as a 555 phone number, and jolts the viewer out of his nest of escape.
I can definitely vouch for this. I’ve recently watched shows that were/are set in my home state, Washington, and in both cases, I found the incorrect license plates quite distracting.
The first was that drama/documentary about the death of Kurt Cobain, _Soaked in Bleach_. An early scene was set in 1994, or perhaps a bit earlier, and included a shot of a private investigator getting into his car. I was immediately distracted by the fact that the car’s plates had the current XXX#### format (3 letters, 4 numbers), a format that was not introduced until … 2006 at the earliest (I started seeing them pop up around 2008). 1994 WA plates had the same background as current plates, but had a ###-XXX format.
There’s a new CW show called _No Tomorrow_ that is set, but plainly not _filmed_, in Seattle, and in the second episode I spotted at least two fake plates, obvious by the XXX-###X format.
It’s surprising just how distracting it can be.