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The music starts. A pulsating display of automotive brilliance comes through the screen and draws you into the moment.
The car… is perfect.
The person driving the car… is Wow!
The music.. the action… the excitement…
In the last moment, you see the seductively low price and the equally elusive lease terms.
Or maybe you simply saw this instead. Today’s question of the day is… “Has a car commercial ever put a vehicle on your shopping list that otherwise, you wouldn’t have considered.”
80 Comments on “Question Of The Day: Have You Ever Fallen For A Beautiful… Car Commercial...”
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I really liked the “Vee-Dub Un-pimp zee auto” GTI commercials. They really seemed to nail their anti-“rice”/buttoned-down German trying to act cool niche perfectly with those commercials. Of course those commercials came right after I unloaded by disastrous Passat so they weren’t nearly cool enough to get me to forget VW ownership horrors and back into the showroom.
Those ads were feckin’ AWESOME. I’ve watched the one where they crush the Ford Focus (or is it an Escort) over and over and over again. They seriously crushed that car – the whole front clip goes shooting off the thing. Absolutely hilarious.
Coming at the height of the Fast and the Furious era, the VW ads were a brilliant poke at the Japanese import scene. Ms. Helga from those ads and in much longer infomercials became a minor celebrity in VeeDub circles.
Worked for me…
I’ll have to admit, the little kid in the Darth Vader ad made me do a double take on the Passat last year.
However, one of my favourite car ads of all time is this one… it’s just so sublime and disarming.
Can you explain the appeal of that Passat commercial to me? I do not understand why that commercial was so great. It barely showed the car, and then at the end, when the car finally arrived, it advertised remote start? Is it purely the cute-factor of the kid running around using the force on things? Was there more to the commercial I missed? Admittedly, after seeing it once, I flipped the channel whenever it came on again.
I didn’t get it either. Yeah, kid in a Vader helmet is cute, big deal.
The most memorable car commercial in my opinion is Ridley Scott’s Nissan 300ZX Commerical. It is a 30 second chase movie, where the 300ZX outruns cars, motorcycles, Formula 1 cars and airplanes. The visuals were stunning and it highlighted the 300ZX perfectly.
“and just when they’re about to catch me,
the twin
turbos
kick
in.”
BOOOOM
Ah, the good old days when turbo lag was a feature. Nissan had a lot of good ads in the ’90s. GI Joe and Barbie (300ZX again), Bob (SE-R), dogs love trucks (Frontier).
Oh yeah – I forgot about GI Joe and Barbie. That was a brilliant commercial – it was absolutely hilarious. Poor Ken and his flamboyant car got left behind. LOL
The Z ad is my favorite. There was a Super Bowl ad for Ford with a GT40 tearing around a track that was great too.
No, but there have been commercials that have turned me off certain vehicles (e.g. the commercial of the hybrid driving family gazing Disney-like at deer while gliding ‘harmlessly’ through the woods, blissfully ‘attuned’ to Nature).
Mazda had one with a creepy kid that succeeded in turning me off their cars for a few years. There has never been a commercial good enough to disguise the underlying crumminess of a car, but car companies can make their products less attractive by revealing themselves to think that their customers are imbeciles.
Joe Isuzu
Nope. Never. Car commercials tend to fall into the following categories.
1. Getting me excited about a car I am already interested in.
2. Making me aware of a new model that I may go research.
3. Complete disinterest.
4. Shock in that they would present something as a good deal that clearly isn’t unless you are fiscally irresponsible and/or mathematically challenged.
I’m reaching all the way back into my childhood years though. I haven’t had #1 happen in awhile since I’ve been in professions where participation in high pressure sales was the norm and I’ve become numb to a lot of standard sales techniques. Not that I don’t appreciate a good sales pitch, in fact I appreciate it more than ever! I just don’t get hyped up around car commercials.
Then again, I get the distinct impression they are not trying to reach people like me with these commercials.
A local Kia dealership in Wisconsin (there really is pretty much only one sizable Kia dealership in the state) had a print ad maybe 5 years ago (back when the Rio was in the $9k range out the door, and worth only that) with this whole “$99/month” thing. I remember thinking “man, everything I know about loans tells me that you’re gonna pay $20/month for every grand you finance”.
Sure enough. Despite showing the Optima and a couple other vehicles, in tiny print on the bottom it stated “price on Lot # 12345 Kia Rio MSRP $9.995 with 40% down-payment.”
If you can’t afford to pay more than a hundred bucks a month for your car payment, or if you’re in the market for THAT Rio (the new one is worlds above the old one, obviously), you probably don’t have $4,000+ laying around for a down payment. They were obviously trying to cater to the poor, and illiterate, crowd.
OH, and they still try this trick. I hear radio ads and see TV commercials all the time advertising $99/month. I wonder how putting $10k down on a $15k car to get a $99/month loan payment on a Kia Forte will work out? ;)
I thought the VW Pink Moon ad absolutely *nailed* the demographic they were going for at the time. The cars themeslves turned out to be crap, but the ad agency should have gotten a monstrous bonus for that one.
Those late-90’s VW commercials were unbelievable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIOW9fLT9eY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXOrbo6DX9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcfW_hlYZ5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-aUBso-XuA
One of the greatest runs of advertising on a single account in history. By Arnold Worldwide, to give credit where credit’s due.
Yeah, Arnold deserves credit for those VW ads. The launch ads for the MK IV Jetta were great, but that Pink Moon spot really is one of the best pieces of work I’ve ever seen. Created an immediate emotional bond with the viewer.
That add got my attention, but I ended up being more interested learning more about the music of Nick Drake than VW.
No question about it, VW has consistently owned the best car ads. Bit, they can’t compensate for the crappy quality of the cars. Too much marketing, too little QC.
Oh yeah, now I remember why Geo died.
the latest ford mustang commercial where the mustang rolls through the city and is mentally customized by all who look at it. The commerical is a little mundane, but the last person, the little girl in the pink ballerina outfit who first sees the car decked out in pink bit it tears away into a black stripes-on-black Shelby that reflects her wearing a black ballerina outfit in the car’s paint as it goes by. What a clever commerical that nods both to the ‘Walter Mitty” mustang commericals of mid-60’s and to Swan Lake at the same time. Bofore I saw the commercial, I was thinking Audi S5, now I’m thinking Shelby Mustang or boss 302. (Can I special order the boss with black striped on black paint, too?)
+1 That commercial really had me thinking seriously about a Boss 302.
I think the seat belt commercial was very well done. I recognized the piece as Speigel Im Speigel (Mirror in Mirror by Arvo Part) immediately, whose eerie melody compliments the sobering message of the ad.
Enrich yourself and check it out on youtube: watch?v=1Y9RgbGLLfE
Shell-Ferrari.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_kwxzU4wL4
By the end I wanted a Ferrari and I wanted to fill it with Shell gasoline.
That’s the standard by which automotive commercials should be measured.
How should we highlight our gas company’s partnership with a race team? By showing their race cars fueled by our gas. The soundtrack? The cars. Voice-over? None.
That’s why it’s so great.
This commercial gives me the chills every time – like a beautiful piece of music. I just want to find an even bigger screen and more powerful speakers and put it on loop.
Oh, so many!
The Oldsmobile Aurora “Statue of Liberty” one from ’95 with “Simple Gifts” playing.
The ’02 Infiniti “Anthem” commercial – retro-futuristic perfection!
The Jaguar “Drive Beautiful” spots from a few years ago.
The ’98 Lexus GS “Something Wicked…” spot.
The ’96 Dodge “Time” commercial (a blob that morphs into each Dodge model through panes of glass). Simply epic.
Of course, the Honda “Cog” spot from ~2002 – the actual working Rube-Goldberg machine made of Euro Accord parts. This one is infamous.
The Citroen C4 “Transformer” series of commercials.
The Chrysler “Imported from Detroit” original with Eminem still gives me chills, and I’m a huge fan of the 300 “If You’re Gonna…” commercial with the Jay-Z/Bobby “Blue” Bland song.
The original Lexus LS400 spots with the chapagne waterfall and ball bearing rolling along the body cut lines.
EDIT: I should have read the actual question. I guess I’ve never actually bought a car based on any of those commercials, but they all made an emotional connection with me that did make me view the cars involved differently than I would have before. Not sure if they swayed any shoppers, though.
So, a little off-topic, but still a great collection of commercials, IMO.
The imported for Detroit one seemed really good but they lost me at the end when Eminem punches at the camera. Something about that ruined the whole experience for me. I think it’s the idea of that little stick figure of a boy acting like he could win any sort of fight just because he thinks he’s tough. Someone like Jason Statham or even an aged Sylvester Stallone I would have given a pass to. Hell, Clint Eastwood, not that he’d ever stoop to such an undignified gesture when he could stare at the camera and make most people piss themselves. That one gesture sent me from interested and somewhat inspired to instantly annoyed and irritated. He went from “Our boy from Detroit” to “Some little wannabe thug who shouldn’t be endorsing anyone’s products”
I love the Audi commercial that premiered with the last Super Bowl. The one with vampires partying in the woods and they all end up exploding because of the LED lights. It brought me to their web site to check out the S7. The S7 wasn’t and still isn’t on the Audi US website (really?), so I went to the UK one where it’s listed. Converting the cost of the S7 from UK pounds to USD the S7 costs over $100,000. Cold reality set in (cool vampire ad or not); that’s way too much money for a souped up Volkswagen and a luxury marque believing in HECHO EN MEXICO, but I digress……
Maybe I’m just too old for the demographic they’re aiming for, but the recent Audi/Vampire spoof didn’t do much for me. It was okay, but too gimmicky and with no emotional tie. I’m a sucker for ads that have an emotional tie-in, ala the much maligned Clint Eastwood superbowl ad, which I thought was great.
I think Audi nailed it with their Jason Statham ad from a few years ago. The dismissive look and sigh he gave the Lexus was priceless…
Few that I still manage to remember:
– The Lexus one where they recorded a violin solo while traveling at 55mph.
– The VW one with Bill Gates.
– The first one with the Acura Legend.
But the mother of all car commercials have got to be the BMW films released about 10 years ago. 5-minute commercials masquerading as action films done by the likes of Tony Scott, John Woo, Wong Kar Wai, John Frankenheimer, Ang Lee, Alejandro Irranitu, etc.
There should be a separate category for Great Ads For Terrible Cars. I’m hooked every time by the Acura ZDX commercial, a textbook example of the genre: spend 90% of the time showing something else that people actually _want_ to watch, then slide the ugly car in at the end.
i.e.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUZ1cuyMIC4
I really liked the old Mini Dueling Banjos commercial, with two neighbors trying to one-up each other by tricking out their Minis. Relating this to the latest Piston Slap, Mini did a lot of advertising featuring men, probably in an effort to combat the cute girly-car image. Seems to have been successful, I believe they have about a 50-50 ratio of male to female drivers.
I rather liked the original Mazda Sky Activ commercial (http://www.youtube.com/user/mazdausa?v=-VZY92CmGiY) with the Bo Diddley sound track. It really distilled the irrational love of cars and the energizing feeling of driving a great car into a commercial. It also really made me miss my old Miata.
It’s not a commercial per se but Top Gear’s Fiesta road test got me to buy a lime green Fiesta.
Yeah…back in the early 1970’s, Ford had a diamond cutter cut a diamond while driving in the back seat of an LTD….to show how smooth and stable the ride was going over bumps.
So, I bought one.
It almost rusted to smithereens before it fell apart and then the transmission blew up.
Ever since then, I pay no attention to car commercials. AFAIC, auto advertising on TV is a massive waste of money….I don’t know ANYONE who ever bought a car due to a commercial since then.
Although for entertainment value, the cool one for the Isuzu Vehi-cross (where 2 guys drive up beside a Land Speed Record rocket car on the Bonneville Salt flats roll down their window to tell the dude driving the rocket car he left his wallet on the roof of the rocket car, then they pass him….) that one was mildly amusing.
No, I think in some cases the best commercials for cars are movie product placement. Think Trans Am sales after “Smokie and the Bandit.” Think Dodge Ram Pick-up sales after “Twister.” Think Mustang sales after “Bullitt.”
Two have stuck with me:
1) The VW GTI ad where they take `Little GTO ` and change it to `Little GTI` sung in german while showing the car flying all over the place.
2) The Isuzu spot where the father and sun are going through the Toys`R Us when he spots an Isuzu Rodeo full size but packaged and on a shelf, full sized.
But to answer the question, no, I did not buy either one.
I have to admit the “Imported from Detroit” was a good commercial. So good, in fact, we had to check out Chrysler’s upgraded offerings at our auto show. We were duly impressed.
Did it influence us into buying one? No, but will cause us to look at a Chrysler a bit more serious, perhaps, in the future as an option.
The commercial I thought was the lousiest I have ever seen was another Super Bowl ad for a car that came out of the back of a moving semi, I believe, and two guys in the back of the trailer were throwing all kinds of stuff for the car to dodge, and just when they were going to toss out another car, the ad stopped, telling you to go to their website to “see what happens next”.
I didn’t, and cannot remember what car they were advertising…
I prefer “Halftime In America.”
I remember that commercial!! It was for the new 2004 Mitsubishi Galant. Might have been an obvious grab for website hits, but it had a SWEET soundtrack. Literally! “Ballroom Blitz” by Sweet. Awesome song.
My favorite was the Pontiac Trans Am commercial labeled: “hungry”. It’s the one where a T/A comes up behind an ‘exotic’ car of some kind at a traffic light and literally eats and leaves the carcass of the exotic car while waiting for the light to change.
http://youtu.be/KW_s5QE6Vec
The best part is the belch.
Unfortunately, I did not buy a T/A back then, but I still want to…
All these posts and not one mention of the Abarth 500 commercial with the stunning brunette. It is interesting to be sitting in a bar or someplace when that ad comes on. You can feel the whole room shift in mood. It’s like most of the men and some of the women just look at the display and think ‘I *want* that.’ at the same time.
There was a car in that commercial ?
I didn’t notice the car, either…
That woman just oozes sex from every pore of her body…talk about a fantasy woman…I’d even buy a Fiat if I could have her….she is smokin’ hotttttt!!
Ford GT commercial from Super Bowl – Great!
youtube.com/watch?v=RQ18DkQTRuY
I forgot Honda’s “Mr. Opportunity” series that ran every August-September for how many years? Thankfully, 2010 was his last!
The last year they used that, I noticed the animation wasn’t up to par and told wifey: “I bet this is the last year for him, and I’m glad – look at how the art has deteriorated.”
Man, was I happy.
Another good one was the VW “Singing in the Rain” GTI ad that aired in the UK several years back. Very cool.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze3JDav6Ijw
Terrible quality, but this was great. It really hit the target market – the 75 was a great car (ruined by a reputation made before it even started production) and the most comfortable, best trimmed thing this side of a Rolls-Royce Phantom. While it doesn’t target every demographic, it makes no pretence to even try to – it just characterises the car and the intended buyer perfectly.
No, I don’t buy cars that way. More thinking, less falling in lust.
But I did see an AT&T commercial, about a catering business, and looked up the data on the blue catering “vans”, found that they do indeed make a passenger version, and added that Nissan to my growing list of vehicles to check out.
No, I’ll never use AT&T again.
The Volkswagen Jetta “Synchronicity” commercial in New Orleans where everything occurs in sync with the music. Ended up test driving the Passat and the Audi A4, but interesting Volkswagen commercials got me to test drive cars that I would have overlooked.
Made me want a car that I didn’t already want? No. Make a car I already found appealing even more so and tempt me to buy it because of the message of the ad? Absolutely. Previous posters have mentioned the “unpimp ze auto” VW commercials. Also from VW I’ll put in the “make friends with you fast” (I looked at some fasts for sale on ebay) , and the one where the Jetta TDi is talking to the Prius in the neighbor’s driveway. Also really liked the Dodge Challenger commercial where they said “Designed by people who really really love cars for people who really really love cars to drive past people who really don’t care about cars at all”, the recent Mazda commercials where they say “if it’s not worth driving it’s not worth building”.
I’ll give special mention (and a link) to this gem from BMW:
http://youtu.be/dp_CynEsNmo
I have that one saved on my youtube favorites list and watching has inspired me more than once to go take my own e46 out for no other purpose than to play and make some music :-D.
Alright, I’ll admit it. The Kia Soul Hamster commercial made me go for a test drive.
The hot gal in the Fiat 500 Abarth commercial raises some interest.
The Hire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIHGT8vWleQ
I love car commercials! Some great ones off the top of my head:
– Pontiac G8 “Spy Hunter”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsG8bySwoiI
– Lexus GS “Something Wicked”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA6HUySkFss
– Some good ones at this link, including the Chrysler Eminem ad and the Jeep “Manifesto” commercial: http://pricinginsider.carsdirect.com/2011/05/20/best-were-back-car-commercials-of-the-past-decade/
Oh so close. I remember a different version of the Lexus “Something Wicked” ad. Occasionally I go searching the interwebz for it, but no success. It used the same voice-over, but different footage of the car, just showing it driving through a dry and dusty hilly landscape. Same sepia-toned effect.
On the other hand, I may be deeply misremembering the one you posted. It was after all a long time ago, and I long ago learned that memory is not to be overly trusted and is easily distorted.
I tend to be an early adopter, so the car’s in my garage before I ever see a commercial for it.
I want to be a technology buyer, and I am when I can afford it. Without something innovative under the hood, I’m a value buyer.
The open development of the first part of the Volt project was probably the most effective way that GM could possibly have promoted the car to me. Let your engineers out in public to talk about the technology. Feed me whitepapers. I want a Volt, because I’ve been watching it mature in to a real car with unique and innovative technology under its hood since it’s infancy 5 years ago.
The commercials and lame slogans about the Volt didn’t do anything to make me more interested… For instance, GM was underwriting program on my local NPR station (which I appreciate) with a slogan that went something like “Brought to you by the Chevy Volt: It has lots of airbags”! Yeah, just like every other car on the road since the late 1990s. Come on guys, you’re not going to talk about the innovative part of the car? To an NPR audience? WTF!
The Volt’s EV range is great match for my lifestyle, but its form-factor isn’t as good. I’m a young dad, so a 5-seat wagon (like the proposed Voltec Orlando) would be a better match for my actual needs. I’ll find out in the the fall if the C-Max Energi is a better fit. I’m also interested in the LEAF, because it’s also an interesting car. But I will be cross-shopping the Volt whenever I’m in the position to acquire a brand-new $40k car. The apparently-open development of the Volt was a really effective way to promote the car to me. I just wish they would have continued this open approach with the Volt 2.0.
P.S. People tell me that I’m not the average consumer all the time. Fine, but I probably look a lot like the average Volt buyer on paper.
Feature/function generally doesn’t sell. Technical feature/function almost never sells with a consumer audience. Early adopters of technology is where it gets fuzzy.
However the NPR voice clip about lots of airbags is lazy marketing at its worse. Calling out “me too” features is another way of saying, “we’ve got nothing.”
“Feature/function generally doesn’t sell.”
I think that’s true for features that don’t matter. Cars were a boring solved-problem to me before the green car thing started to happen. Seriously, if you compare a 1991 Honda Accord to 2003 Honda Accord to a 2012 Honda Accord, there are new features — change trays, slightly improved radios, slightly more refined drivetrains, etc. But VVT and a smoother 4-speed auto will make the car last a little longer, burn a few cents less in gas, and drive a little nicer — but they just aren’t something that the average car owner will notice on a daily basis.
Not buying gasoline (except on special occasions) *IS* something that matters to the owner. It actually *IS* a feature that matters. And, while I may be more interested in the details of the tech than most people, it is something interesting and new. But, even if you don’t care how the car does it, not buying gas is a feature that actually matters.
Yeah, I agree, the airbags thing on NPR translated roughly to “we got nothin\'”. It started right after Fox News started using the Volt as a political punching bag, so my guess at the time was that GM’s PR people were afraid of the Volt, but they still wanted to push it to the NPR demographic[0]. So “Chevy Volt: It has airbags” it was. I don’t know, but that’s how it sounded at the time.
The other thing worth noting is that, from what I’ve seen without actual marketing data, is that the people who are buying the Volt at point aren’t normal car buyers. It seems to a kind of a geek’s Corvette (and it’s out-selling the Corvette), so the technology under the hood is going to matter to this kind of person.
Anyway, the old advertising truisms ruffle my feathers a bit. The fundamentals haven’t changed, but we’re in the process of moving from broadcast media to interactive media, and that means that the broad-strokes approach that worked for decades of TV advertising probably only applies to generic people buying generic stuff. That probably applies to the Camry/Accord/Malibu/Fusion, and even to the Prius to a growing extent. But to the Volt? Not yet, and not at a $40k price-point.
[0] People who contribute to NPR stations tend to be educated and have higher than average incomes, so they’re probably the right demographic for a $40k passenger car. While I suspect NPR’s actual listeners are a much broader group, the contributors are the ones that the stations have data about.
No. A car commercial (Buick) once did make me appreciate the McLaughlin Group a little more than I already did. That commercial was worthy of Saturday Night Live.
I fell for a print ad for a Honda Prelude. Will buying a 500 Abarth make me a bad boy? I may know if buy one. “See the USA in your Chevrolet” or “Have you driven a Ford lately’? Are those tunes now stuck in your head?
Most car commercials show a lifestyle pie with a slice of car thrown in. Just show me the damn car, it’ll live or die on its merits.
I hate luxury SUV ads that show their “tough” SUV driving down dirt roads. The type of roads country dwellers normally drive. I get a case of “please bitch” and the ad leave me cold.
I also liked the “Kline GTI” spot, but the most memorable commercial for me was for the Triumph Spitfire in the 70’s. It had it all, a Supermarine Spitfire scrambling beside the Triumph. The engines rev, the driver has a blonde by his side, and after giving each other a thumbs up, both roar off into history. “Good show!” I really, really wanted a Spitfire after that. Of course I was 15 at the time and a bit of an airplane nerd.
I like last year’s Toyota Highlander commercial where the grade school kid riding in the Highlander snickers at the classmate stuck in a very uncool Detroit ride. Cool commercial.
I wanted to give that kid a sever beat down for his A$$hat attitude toward his parents financial well being. But then again, his parents probably encouraged him in that behavior so they deserved what they got.
Before you flame, I am always kind to animals and kids, but first you have to get their attention.
That’s funny because I was going to mention that ad…as one of the WORST ever made. That kid is a walking advertisement for birth control if their ever was one. My wife and I both have evil thoughts whenever that commercial was on and would change the channel as soon as possible to make that obnoxious, spoiled, conceited, superficial, walking embodiment of suburban excess disappear. If it were my kid making snide comments about other kid’s parent’s cars I would make him get out and walk. The worst part, is that they try to sell the Highlander as “cool”…ROFL. If it were my kid making snide comments about other kids parent’s cars I would make him get out and walk.
+1
I’m an advertising junkie – I could list so many – but I’ll stick to the one that is running right now that makes my heart melt.
As the father of a 12 year old female gearhead with the “go fast” gene, I can associate with this Subaru ad.
The over protective father, with the little girl squirming in the front seat, as he is telling her to not text and drive, and be careful, and finally the little girl knows, “I know……………” and he hands her the keys. But the little girl is all grown up.
When my daughter saw that ad she turned to me and said, “that will be you one day.”
MELT – boy did she know what button to push.
But – one part that won’t be me, “stay off the interstate you’re not ready for that.”
If my kid isn’t ready to drive on the interstate, they aren’t ready to drive. And it is a boneheaded thing for dad to say in the ad because you’re safer on the interstate then surface streets. But I’ll let that sin pass.
But the ad works for me on so many levels, and “safe” will be one of my primary concerns on any vehicle choice she is driving.
“Has a car commercial ever put a vehicle on your shopping list that otherwise, you wouldn’t have considered.”
Well, this one had me considering a Dodge Aries for a while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_GtLssyNAs
In all seriousness, no car ad has ever had a positive impact on my purchase decisions-although there have been a number that have served to reinforce my decision to not do business with certain brands.
Lexus is particularly guilty of this; their commercials are pretentious, aspirational and obnoxious. This one is particularly irksome to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS1lexa9wGw
The ML beat the RX to market by a full model year. To imply that it’s a copy of the RX is just flat out wrong, and-in my view-extremely disingenuous.
Mercedes had a fantastic ad agency in the ’90s and early ’00s; their current ads are stylistically similar but they’re not nearly as well put together as the old stuff is (sorta like the cars…) in my opinion. Their older ads really hit the brand values very, very well. These few in particular, I think, are some of the best advertisements that have ever been put together for any product:
An Australian ad for the W126: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VojePSOrnYw
The “Faithful” ad/promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nj-XvnslPw
The “Soul” ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU2tNVuFBXg
The “Safety” ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv0ZPyj7S6M
The “History” ad/promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y77jEGOFlOc
I also thought the W211 E55 ad was great, although it was one of the first ones that adopted their current advertising style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMENRzUBB58
Jaguar has also done some very good ones as -I’m particularly fond of this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-A44wbdiRs and I think Cadillac’s recent ads do a good job at pushing the image they want to portray.
As far as more “mainstream” cars go, Subaru has done some good stuff; the Sumo wrestlers and the Forester ones are fantastic (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vasc8ghyu1g , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eeynzv3N7PE), and so was one they had of a WRX drifting endlessly around a cloverleaf or something that I can’t seem to find anymore. And I think Mazda’s “What do you drive?” approach is very clever… So are the Chrysler “Imported from Detroit” ads, although nothing is going to make me want a Sebr-er, 200.
No.
I like the commercials of cars I would never buy the most.
This isn’t to suggest they should quit, only that by the time it’s in a commercial, my desire to add a car to the testable category has already been decided. Likely, saw it on TTAC.
One of the best print ads was for Dodge showing a HEMI Charger with the line: The new hybrid Charger…burns both gas and rubber!! Very cool even if a bit redneck.
Usually the Mustang makes for some great commercials…. like back in ’05 when the S197 debuted, they had one with the Mustang’s V8 revving the national anthem while a projector screen behind it showed historical Mustangs and general hoonery…. again at the same time they had one that echoed ‘Field of Dreams’ with “Build it and he will come”, so the guy builds a racetrack in a cornfield and pulls out a new Mustang out of the barn…. out of the corn walks Steve McQueen wearing his outfit from Bullitt…. just perfect. Or the one with the Shelby GT500 called “Germany”; in this one they let the Shelby’s root style supercharger do the talking…. or ‘The One’ Superbowl ad for the Ford GT… my dad did a double take on that one….
There was one for Shell gasoline (or at least I think it was) where they show a junkyard…. suddenly fuel nozzles start pumping fuel into the rusted hulks…. then they cut to the entrance of the junkyard and all the sudden cherry classic muscle cars start coming out- the one I remember was a yellow ’71-’73 Mach 1 Mustang with a bunch of other cars that I would happily give up a kidney for. I haven’t been able to find that commercial though.
– Late 1990s and early 2000s VW commercials in general
– Lexus “Something Wicked”
– Shell Ferrari
– 2000 Nissan Maxima with The Who (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URSmFnkQGP4)
– “Porsche kid” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1EoNaZpPzI)
– Lincoln “Perceptions” AKA “Surprising Journey” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vknwHj2VXoQ)
– Volvo “New Direction” for the original S60 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jsDhXmCVqg)
– “Little Red” for the new S60 R-Design (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzJHzmkgEvI)
– VW “Night Drive” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U9I7QrpSkk)
– Kate Walsh for the Cadillac CTS (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkEw1rsBUak)
The 4th gen Camaro ads from ’93 with the Z28 power sliding across the screen “cup holder big enough for a Slurpee”.
The 4th gen Camaro ad from ’94 with Jimi Hendrix “Let me stand next to your fire” soundtrack.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMFYWb5QIcM
The Mercedes-Benz ad that shows the life of the E class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqAh__shMHA
Their SL history “As Time Goes By”. They are both brilliant!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoP5jJG1Cdk&feature=relmfu
I win!
One of the cutest car ads (from the other side of the atlantic) for the Skoda Fabia around 2007.
youtube /watch?v=WhfEGKc7PLQ