Last night my wife and I were watching TV when a commercial we hadn’t seen before started up. Within three seconds I realized the commercial was lame, pandering, and stupid, but clearly had been very expensive to make. The product being sold was not yet clear, but obviously, it was a commercial for a car. I was right.
Automobile companies have huge advertising budgets and stand to gain or lose a lot through advertising and yet their commercials seem to be universally, hopelessly lame. The guys over at Nike have made a seemingly endless string of amazing, cutting-edge advertisementsm and they’re just selling the same shitty athletic wear their competitors are. Other industries seem to produce decent commercials - Canadian Tire, a national hardware/sporting goods/housewares chain here, has a hilarious one out right now. Some aren’t funny but clearly covey the usefulness and economicality of the product. Some make you hungry for the foods being sold.
But, with very few exceptions, car commercials are amazingly fucking lame. They all look the same. I have trouble even remembering which ad campaign goes with which brand, unless the ad campaign is really irritating, like the “zoom-zoom” kid or those truck commercials where they played “Like a Rock” over and over (that was GM, or possibly Ford.)
This seems profoundly counterintuitive to me. Given the dollars at stake, I would have guessed, if I’d never seen TV before, that car commercials would be the BEST commercials, the most cutting edge, the funniest, the most amazing commercials you’d ever see on TV.
I think I’ve seen two good car commercials in the last two years, and they were both Volkswagen.
The problem I’m noticing here is that it’s getting increasingly difficult (IMHO) to tell the difference between ads for the “NEW FORD FALCON XR8 LONGREACH UTE WITH SO MUCH POWER WOMEN WILL TEAR THEIR CLOTHES OFF AND THROW THEMSELVES AT YOU FOR HOT, NAKED SEX!” and a Government Road Safety Ad.
The only difference is that the Car Ad ends with a shot of a shiny car, a logo, and a price; while the Government Road Safety Ad ends with someone getting killed unpleasantly (and/or killing other, innocent people unpleasantly) or ending up in hospital and generally fucking their life up because they were drink-driving or speeding or whatever.
But you’re right, Car Ads should be the most interest Ads on TV and they aren’t. I don’t have any insights into it, though.
I know this is more IMHO and doesn’t really answer the OP, but the thing that really bugs me about automobile ads (especially pickup trucks) is when they show the vehicle doing some preposterous stunt and then they have the little disclaimer “Do not attempt. Professional driver on closed course.” Why are you showing me this vehicle doing something in an ad that I can’t do with the vehicle myself? How is that supposed to make me want to buy it?
In general though, I don’t know that car ads are any worse than any other ads. About 95% of advertising is crap in my opinion, no matter what they’re selling.
Of course everyone who buys an SUV must drive it to the most remote, and solitary spot overlooking the Grand Canyon and then step out and enjoy the fresh air and perfect sunset while precariously poised at the edge of a 3,000 foot cliff. “Because you go your own way!” or some other equally vacuous platitude.
Very original.
Or how about the $14,000, 100 HP piece of shit drifting through a corner across wet pavement and in total control with glimmering water being thrown up into the lights just right. (Do not attempt. Professional driver. Closed track.)
Can you picture marketing executives still making pitches like this? “Say, J.P. great idea about the Grand Canyon. Let’s go with it.” :rolleyes:
The auto industry is infamous for being a little slow to react to the market.
Also, the ads you’re seeing today were scripted probably a year or so ago, when gas had just reached $2 a gallon and we hadn’t seen $4 a gallon gas, and they were still expecting to sell cars as status symbols and stylistic statements. Now, people are looking at mileage as their primary concern, and the ads we’re seeing seem kinda dumb. I don’t really care how sturdy my car is, or how high a mountain it can climb, or what color it is, or how many cupholders it’s got. I only care about (a) mileage and (b) whether the manufacturer is going to be in business a couple years from now, and that second one is a fairly new consideration. Chances are my next car won’t be built by an American manufacturer.
Note that the acceptably interesting ads linked above are for BMW, VW and Citroen…
I used to ask this sort of question a lot. I got the same response very often, Namely: If you see a commercial and don’t appreciate it, that usually means that you are not part of the specific audience that they were targeting.
I didn’t believe that answer, though, until I saw this commercial. It was the first – and still ONLY – commercial for a car that I have ever enjoyed.
This very morning my friend and I were talking about this. It’s not like people buy a car everyday, so why are the ads so horrible? My friend also pointed out something along the lines of what Keeve said.
If I needed and could afford a flashy new car, my perception may be altered.
This ad was wildly popular and won a buncha awards. It created great buzz. The only problem was, the buzz was about the ad, not the car (read the comment posted below the ad.)
The final nail in the coffin, Nissan finally pulled the spot and replaced it with a generic “buy a Nissan NOW” commercial that local dealers had put together and sales actually increased!
Marketing disasters like this are rehashed for years as case histories. Eventually, the exact details of why the particular ad bombed are forgotten, leaving only the general lesson: real creative advertising doesn’t sell cars."
The funniest “Closed course professional driver do not attempt” disclaimer is the ad that shows nothing but a car on a highway, no fancy maneuvers, no bad weather, just plain old driving.
At the local dealers around me a few years ago there was a trend to put a large inflatable creature on the top of their building. I’m sure it was to get attention. But does anyone really think “I didn’t plan to buy a car today but they have that big purple gorilla and I have to stop.”
I think the problem with that was at no point in that ad did I see a car that wasn’t a remote controlled vehicle. It was funny and original and all but I didn’t ever see the product they were advertising. If they had cut out the driving through the house and running from the cat and instead at the end watched a live version of GI Joe and his redhead drive away from a mansion in an actual nissan they might have actually sold a few cars.
A local, plain-talk car dealer here in the Twin Cities had a radio ad where he said that he noticed other dealers were putting giant, inflatable monkeys on the roofs of their dealerships, and he thought, “I don’t think I’m gonna get a giant monkey…”
Then he got a lot of flack from said dealers, and he put out another ad saying “… but they bought giant monkeys…”
