Cadillac’s Dare Greatly might be getting some flack as of late for its seemingly deep-but-surfacy language. But, it’s far from the most egregious use of the English language to move some metal.
Oh, the Japanese – they have their own unique talents with our mother tongue. Whether it’s model names (Isuzu Mysterious Utility Wizard, anyone?) or some of the amazing ads from the ’80s featuring Hollywood’s greatest stars, Japanese automotive marketing has always seemed quirkily entertaining when viewed from a Western perspective.
But, one tagline in particular – Drive @ earth from Mitsubishi – actually makes me mad.
It’s not solely because the tagline is bad (though it is), but because they still use it after all these years. When it comes to current slogans, Drive @ earth really, really doesn’t mean a single thing, which might be quite apt in the case of Mitsubishi.
What say you, Best & Brightest? What’s the worst automaker slogan being used right now?
“That’s not a Buick” Its a bit more than the bad slogan, but my reaction to the latest round of Buick ads where people are looking for a Buick and not seeing it (especially the one with the car jockey running back and forth down a line of cars muttering “Buick, Buick”). My reaction to those ads was; Buick,you are telling me that 50 years of advertising your three shield symbol, costing umpteen million dollars, was totally wasted since someone looking for your brand doesn’t recognize it!!
They dusted off “Not you father’s Oldsmobile” it seems.
My biggest problem with that ad is the idea that anyone could possibly think a LaCrosse is anything _other_ than a Buick. I think we all have the message pretty well in hand that, if it looks like a Chinese knock-off of a luxury car, it’s a Buick.
…and the fact the LaCrosse is the most Buick of (current) Buicks.
British Leyland beauty with brains behind it…
No Jag – Austin Marina.
Remember a few years ago during the meat of the recession when Mitsubishi ran a few ads with the slogan “Let’s End Pretentiousness?” I wanted to puke every time I saw it.
For 17 years Ford had the “Quality is Job 1” campaign. The reality was that the Japanese were cleaning the domestics’ clocks in quality so advertising was the response. So, not a bad slogan but for it to work it needed to be somewhat based in reality.
Ford and quality were not the reality. At the time it only made you wonder what “Job 2” was. Perhaps it was responding to all the complaints about “Job 1”.
Job 1 is an actual term still used as part of Ford’s internal lingo. Not sure if it started as a marketing slogan and was adapted to manufacturing, or if the marketing slogan was taken from manufacturing.
Look at it this way, you don’t want the Job 1 F-250, you want the Job 3 truck.
The “Quality is Job 1” campaign looks like a masterstroke compared to GM’s solution to poor quality at the time… Howie Makem, the Quality Cat!
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/tag/howie-makem/
I always laughed at that one. Then I thought about poor Mr. Goodwrench being shown the door with the cat looking on – and laughed even harder. Looking back, that was GM’s jump the shark moment.
GM ran a campaign in the Eighties: “Nobody Sweats The Details Like GM”
Noting how awful quality control on GM cars had become, a C&D letter writer chimed in with, “nobody sweats the recalls like GM.”
A computer company I worked at wanted a new slogan, so some of us suggested “At xxx, quality is job number zero!”
Management didn’t appreciate us.
Ford and its reputation was at the bottom of the barrel when the “Quality is Job 1″ campaign came out and the Ford logo returned to their cars (the Ford oval disappeared in 1949 and returned in 1982.) By 1980, Ford had lost half of their sales from two years ago to the imports, and was in financial trouble.
The campaign was Ford’s way of proclaiming they were turning the company around. It certainly did not happen overnight, and there were still duds waiting in Ford’s future; but it can easily be argued that Ford did indeed turn the company and their product line around in those 17 years.
It was not meant to be a proclamation they were already better than the competition; but that they were working on improving the situation. And that they did, one product (Taurus/Sable, Explorer, 1997 F Series, Focus just to name a few) at a time. I think it was actually a good fit for state the company was in at time.
It wasn’t the actual slogan but the Escort and Taurus (and the beginning of jelly-bean design) that saved Ford.
I agree Lorenzo; but the slogan was Ford’s way of announcing they were staging a comeback by replacing their archaic RWD lineup with a new line of higher quality FWD jellybeans. If in fact they did not deliver; a slogan alone would not have saved them.
Chrysler: Imported from Detroit
Cadillac: The Standard of the World
Not slogans but still make me scratch my head:
Honda: Earth Dreams
Hyundai: Blue Drive
Mazda: SKYACTIV
Nissan: Pure Drive
For once, BMW’s slogan of “Efficient Dynamics” actually makes somewhat more sense that these.
On your same topic, one that got me from about 10 years ago was after the success/notoriety Honda garnered with their VTEC system, the domestics started to have some form of -tec for their cam timing system’s name Ecotec, Zetec, etc. to cash in on the name/brand equity that VTEC had garnered.
As a tagline, I like “Standard of the World.” It’s just sad that it’s no longer appropriate for Cadillac.
The “Standard of the World” tagline came from Cadillac winning the Dewar trophy for successfully using standardized parts to build a car.
That was a big deal 100 years ago. Today, not so much.
While “the standard of the world” slogan came out of the Dewar award, Henry Leland’s devotion to standards went beyond standardized parts. Cadillac was the first American car company to use Johansson gauges, aka Jo blocks, for calibrating tools.
There are reasons for it, but it’s a shame that Leland isn’t better known. He founded Cadillac but that brand won’t honor him because he later founded Lincoln and Lincoln won’t honor him because of his role in turning the Henry Ford Co., Henry’s second automotive venture, into Cadillac. Ford would later buy Lincoln out of receivership in part so he could humiliate Leland and have him walked out of his own factory.
There’s more to it than that. Leland didn’t really build Cadillac, he just renamed it and slapped his engine in them. The cars themselves were all-but identical to the Ford Model A.
On the other hand, Leland (and Cadillac) could be credited with numerous extremely important innovations in automobile construction and technology. Cars today wouldn’t exist without some of them.
I love the “Standard of the World” slogan.
Hyundai “Blue Drive” lol.
The worst ever is the old Toyota|Everyday slogan. How they didn’t know that “everyday” primarily meant “ordinary or commonplace” is really strange to me.
Unless they wanted to go ahead and own the notion of dull and routine and… whoa.
The current Toyota Camry commercials are horrible. Something about “Let’s Go Places” and rewarding the bold. Something about a snowboarder and a long distance runner and amputee that also ballroom dance. At least they aren’t Nissan commercials though.
Bring back Toyota ads featuring “Jan”. She’s a lot better-looking than some of their cars!
She’s probably busy caring for her new baby…
Jan has become the new Jill of Mercury fame. RIP Mercury.
No one, and I repeat, NO ONE, will ever take the place of Jill Wagner…..She was very cute…..Jan, not so much!
:-)
Bring back Jan? When did she go away? I’m pummeled by ads featuring her multiple time daily. And I find her about as physically appealing as Flo. At least the Flo ads occasionally have some wit about them.
Flo needs to be punished… ;-)
Flo makes me think she has nieces.
Lincoln MKZ.
“The most class in its class.”
You’re going to get held after class.
I’m sure someone thought it was clever. I’m just not sure they have any idea what they’re doing.
Also, I love the mid 90s (edit: mid 00s!) Subaru JDM Legacy commercial.
Bruce Willis is standing there, in a suit.
*removes sunglasses*
“Congratulations…”
I loathed a Mitsubishi slogan from several years ago: “Achieve Mitsubishi” followed by a registered trademark symbol . . . afraid somebody would try to steal it! So far I think Mitsubishi is knocking it out of the park for bad slogans.
How can most people here at TTAC competently judge car commercials? We’re not the targeted audience. The ads require audience ignorance and suggestibility.
I think there’s at least one marketing pro here (Toad guy?), maybe more, and I’d like to see their input.
BMW’s “joy” campaign never made any sense to me. Decades of finely tuned adrenaline pumping precision driving standard bearing sports sedans, aka the ultimate. Driving. MACHINE! And all of a sudden “hey come frolic and be a hippie with us”.
I’m guessing the executives thought the same thing because it only stuck around for a year or so. Also why on earth did FIAT ever use the slogan “Fix It Again Tony”? (ba-dum bum)
“Decades of finely tuned adrenaline pumping precision driving standard bearing sports sedans..”
And they’ve survived and flourished despite that. I think BMW is brilliant.
Chevy trucks, “Like a rock”.
to be a rock and not to roll…
George Thorogood “Get a Haircut and Get a Real Job” should have been used by some automaker somewhere for one of their muscle cars.
Perhaps the Challenger?
“Like a Rock” was awesome. It was one of the longest running TV campaigns ever. Plus, as a child of the 90s, that commercial burned into my brain the idea that Chevy trucks were the, “most dependable and longest lasting trucks on the road.”
Bob Seger is the greatest truck salesman of all time!!! Bring him back!!!
“BOLD NEW CAMRY.”
“Bold” and “Camry” in the same sentence? Laughable. You can call a pig a princess all you want, but it’s still a pig.
Pretty much my exact reaction when first seeing that commercial. I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I’d take my Cavalier over a numb, mundane Camry. At least it’s fun to drive.
You lost me there.
I think I’d choose a Camry. At least it’s reliable and the plastic on the gear lever doesn’t cut my fingers. And I took drivers ed in a Cavalier. It wasn’t fun to drive.
Let me rephrase, I’d take my 5-Speed Cavalier Z24 over a Camry. Not a base model Cavalier, then it’s a tie. Toyota might have it in reliability, however.
Might have it? LOL
At least yours is a manual. But still, this is extreme bias.
Sorry, but I find it hard to believe that anyone, ever, anywhere, had any fun whatsoever, driving any car with the Cavalier name plate on it.
Any functional vehicle was fun in high school; Cavaliers, Chevettes, and Parisiennes included.
I’d also rather drive a 2.4L or 2.2L Cavalier Z24 over a lot of Camrys. But not a 3.0L 5-speed early-nineties Camry.
I’ll admit the saying is a clear response to the notion of Camry being an appliance, but it’s not the dullest car out there, and in SE form, is pretty exciting.
I challenge you to find a car more dull than Camry, unless it is a Corolla or Prius. Hell, even the Korean midsizers are hot sex compared to Camry.
The Malibu may be ugly, not very good, and ugly again, but its still more bold and exciting than Camry. Come to think of it, Alex Trebeck trying to softly talk a baby to sleep is more exciting than a Camry.
The SE has a gaudy body kit and fog lights. Wow. Stop the world, mommy, I want to get off! Way too much excitement!
Dull? You need to go test drive a V6 Camry SE. I’d take that over any Sonata I’ve driven.
Malibus are nice, but bold and exciting? I want some of what you are smoking.
The only way a Camry is bold is if you compare it to a Corolla.
I mostly roll my eyes at car ads, they’re not really targeting enthusiasts and fans like us, hence my reaction. But, my God, do I loathe the Subaru Ads. Especially the radio commercials. They all follow the same formula:
“It rains here, so I bought a Subaru, so I can be symmetrically stuck in the mud. ALL-WHEEL DRIVE. SO SAFE. Did we mention we have All-Wheel Drive? What about the same safety ratings that every other brand got in the same segments? All-Wheel Drive. Symmetry. Safe. Love. It’s what makes an All-Wheel Drive Toyota, a Subaru”.
One literally describes a lady that only feels safe in her Subaru when it’s raining out. What? And people eat that kind of marketing up. The slogan contains the name of the car maker. That’s like using the very word you’re defining in the definition. I understand the love part, keeping your occupants (they usually show the family) safe. But, it’s cheesy at best.
Don’t forget, “Subaru, the car for your dog”. Actually it was marketed directly to dogs, probably in a frequency only they can hear.
The Subaru “love” commercials top my list. Can’t figure out anything meaningful to say about a product? Claim it’s made from “love”.
It was disappointing to hear Maserati’s slogan “Excellence through passion” which is no doubt a copy cat of Bridgestone’s “Passion for excellence”
I think I’d prefer “Excellence through build quality.” when hearing about a Maserati. Ha.
While objectively it’s not the worst, Pierce-Arrow’s 1933 “Suddenly it’s 1940” might be the saddest, given the company’s bleak outlook and the fact that its beautiful ads of the ’10s and ’20s had little or no copy.
Packard, of course, still has the best slogan.
Packard’s slogan re-purposed in the song “So Round So Firm So Fully Packed”
You can bet your boots I’d walk a mile through the snow
Just to see that toothpaste smile they mention on the radio
If you don’t think she’s a lot of fun, ‘just ask the man that owns one’
So round, so firm, so fully packed, that’s my gal
“First Ever G6.” Which could be restated as “First Ever Combination of These Particular Meaningless Characters to Refer to a Humdrum Vehicle.”
Worse, I’m pretty sure I noticed, “First Ever CT-6” the other day.
[uses The Google]
Yep. It’s real. Nuts. At least the CT-6 probably has a little more going on.
CT-6 makes me think CAT-6, which was a standardized test used back in the late 90s early 2000s.
I remember taking the CAT tests I believe in high school.
I first ran into it when I got to NM. The state did not have its own standardized tests at that point, we borrowed others.
Prior to that I had grown up in Ohio and taught in MI so I was familiar with Michigan’s MEAP test.
“MEAP test”
Homer: How’d you get to be so good?
June Bellamy: Oh, just experience I suppose. I started out as Road Runner. [does Road Runner’s voice] Meep!
Homer: You mean “Meep-meep?”
June Bellamy: No, they only paid me to say it once, then they doubled it up on the soundtrack. … Cheap bastards.
The MEAP is now dead. It had a good 44 year run. Now we have the M-STEP, which is online and NCLB and Common Core compliant. It was developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. What a horrific sounding entity.
Try PARCC on for size: Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
Future QOTD: What’s the worst title for an educational standards organization?
“Future QOTD: What’s the worst title for an educational standards organization?”
There are many…
Funny how the “first ever G6” became the last ever Pontiac.
Drive@earth [sic] is stupid any way you cut it, but it would be somewhat less inane if planets other than Earth were available for driving.
Pontiac’s “We Build Excitement” campaign was good for the manly hard rock jingle and “Silk Stockings”-esque music-video ads, but aside from the Fiero, Firebird/Trans Am, and maybe the Grand Prix, there really wasn’t anything to match the ball-smashing, car-crashing, horse-galloping, wall-banging, testosterone-poisoned bravado the campaign was going for.
And yet Pontiacs were the ultimate “Whaddya mean maintenance? I always put gas in it!” beauticians’ cars.
It was too easily changed to “We Build Excrement.”
Saw the first lumpy swath of Bondo on a car in over a decade the other day; half a soccer ball in size beneath the filler door on a last-gen Grand Prix. It of course had shrunk & sunk into the rot hole.
I kindly draw the B&B’s attention to this Toyota Aygo ad that is currently used in Europe:
http://www.prodigiousbroadcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/aygo_whos_driving_website.jpg
When self-proclaimed marketing gurus with NOT english as their first language try to come up with edgy slogans, I guess…..
To me this looks intentional. In English, and with younger people – “fun” is used as a replacement for the F expletive.
Example:
What the fun?
The fun are you talking about?
Who the fun is that?
Corey’s got it right. When that particular tranche of humanity inflicts themselves upon my office I hear that usage, especially peer-peer.
Toyota always does their localization research. And I always keep Febreeze in my desk drawer.
I like it.
It’s no worse than the Yaris slogan: “It’s a car!”
Better: “It’s a car?”
GM’s ad for the new Chevy Citation:
“It works!”
Good job, GM, finally something you made actually runs. Now let’s see how long that panel-gapped POS lives up to its slogan.
It’s not automotive, but they used to run an ad for Snickers candy bars that said “gives your stomach something to do”.
I can’t think of a current slogan that annoys, but both Mitsubishi’s “The word is getting around” in the 90’s, and Mercury’s last gasp “New Doors Opened” used to bother the hell out of me for being stupid.
“HEARTBEAT of America” was huge, but too easy/frequently mocked with HEARTBREAK…
The “Like a ROCK” went to “Like a KNOCK” after the whole GM “Piston Slap” fiasco, and became the running joke. GM retired that one in shame.
The “If You Can Find a Better Car BUY IT!” was Pure Gold!
“HEARTBEAT of America”
Diabolically ironic given the age and health status of the Chevy buyers in these parts.
“Heartbeat of America” — I resented GM and the slogan every time I saw an ad featuring this slogan plastered over the image of a rebadged import passed off as a Chevy, as I was anti-import at the time and felt it misled people into thinking the cars were American. Plus, it was illogical – how could something foreign be the heartbeat of America?
“Love, it’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru!” Worse than Subie’s “What to Drive” campaign from the 90s.
Also from the early 00s: “The power of &” (Cadillac)
Go Further.
Bold Moves, dude. Bold Moves.
“Bold Moves”…whose was that?
Ford
“Bold Moves” was replaced by “Drive One”, which was replaced by “Go Further”. Ford seems to like two word ad campaigns.
What Gives?
I can’t think of a single current-day slogan, as I don’t watch live TV and don’t listen to any radio with commercials.
So automakers, I guess I’ll have a hard time Getting to Know You…
YEAH GET TO KNOW GEO!
Saturn’s “We’re still here”.
Maybe because I was an impressionable youth, but I liked a lot of the 80s ones like:
“I love what you do for me”
“We build excitement”
“We make it simple”
Though admittedly, I never understood “Sakes alive”
I suspect today’s slogans are decided on and watered down by a half dozen committees. They sure sound like it.
OOPS….. deleting my comment
Lexus: The Relentless Pursuit of Perfection
Implies that perfection can never be reached, only pursued.
Yes, that’s correct. They cannot accurately claim that their cars are perfect. Immediate lawsuit would occur. But they can try as hard as they can for it – relentlessly.
I don’t think this is an example of a slogan fail.
Gentlemen, we are going to relentlessly chase perfection, knowing full well we will not catch it, because nothing is perfect. But we are going to relentlessly chase it, because in the process we will catch excellence. I am not remotely interested in just being good. – Vince Lombardi
I’m no Lombardi fan (because I’m a long suffering Cleveland Browns fan) but that is an excellent quote. I figured Lexus borrowed a bit of it.
Exactly, always reaching for the stars, but never fully getting there.
“When better cars are built, Buick will build them.”
A longstanding oldie, but my son pointed out a problem with this, as if the slogan is REALLY saying: “At some indeterminate point in the future, when better cars are built, …”
During GM’s seemingly endless 30 year slide into bankruptcy, I used to marvel that the only excellent part of their organization seemed to be their advertising department. Good slogans were easy. Product execution, not so much. Kinda bassakward compared to the typical business situation.
Yours truly,
Joe Isuzu
As someone who has had executive responsibility for corporate marketing, and whose wife has a career background in packaged goods marketing, I can tell you that GM’s marketing budget throughout that 30-year period was the envy of almost every other business in the world. It would have been remarkable if they had not produced great stuff with it – the reality is that some times they did, and some times they didn’t.
What is really remarkable is how all the money they had for product development/quality during the same period produced such poor results compared to their competitors – which was validated by the market.
No one’s hit on Mazda for “Zoom-Zoom”? I own two of them, but it’s kind of a stupid slogan.
The worst “brand” I have seen in the US is BMW’s “EfficientDynamics” term. What is it even supposed to mean?
Japan probably gets the prize for misusing and making up English words, but one I have seen that makes no sense was for the current Estima (Previa). “Estima. Estimind.” Which, in Japan, was probably pronounced “Estimindo.”
“Fahrvergnügen”. Hands down.
Throw a word at your audience that they can’t understand or pronounce, and whose meaning you don’t properly communicate.
And the ultimate sin was, it didn’t sell cars. VW sales in the US declined every year they ran this campaign.
“Fahrvergnügen” – the best corruption I saw of that was Farfromsober.
There is also fukngroovin I used to see that as a bumper sticker when the ad campaign was still running.
I studied German in school and I cringe every time someone says “varvignoogen”
Farfrompukin’.
I remember the timing of that VW slogan made me think they ripped off Mazda’s Kensei Engineering.
s187.photobucket.com/user/chalkyjr/media/farfrompuken.jpg.html
Toyota | Moving Forward >
Right smack dab during the unintended acceleration fiasco. Truth in advertising.
Hi.
An American Revolution.
During their bankruptcy filing.
Road to Redemption.
Certainly turned out to be the road not traveled.
Jaguars new one: “Mark Your Territory”
I think my poodle does that.
This. I hate this one. It just makes me think of cat piss.
At least “Mark Your Territory” plays on the cat theme, so it makes some sense.
The worst slogans are the ones that don’t ring true. Mercedes Benz’ “the best or nothing” is not as laughable as Cadillac’s reviving the “Standard of the World” slogan (while their product is still far from it), but there’s a lot about Benz’s current lineup that doesn’t scream “best”. “The best, or nothing, so long as you’re spending $50,000 or up” is closer to accurate, but not very catchy.
Nonsensical or generic slogans are also silly. Drive@earth, I can’t say I’ve seen that one yet, but this would be one example. Another is Toyota’s “Let’s Go Places”, which says nothing about what differentiates Toyota, and could be the slogan of any car company (or airline or train or bus or cruise line). And can we stop with the advertising campaigns trying to create the next “Flo” from Progressive character? Toyota, AT&T cellular, …
I’ve yet to see a carmaker come up with a worse slogan than “6 > 1”, which is the slogan for Flonase nasal spray.
Oh my God. Yeah that has to be the worst. When the guy says “And 6 is greater than 1″ with a huge graphic ” 6 > 1 ” I want to punch my TV.
“Pontiac Is Car”.
I’ll just leave that here….
“Dodge Ram. It’s all the Japanese you need to know!”
Holden’s current slogan – “Let’s Go There”. Apparently it tugs on the heartstrings of Australians, or some BS like that.
Heartstrings? No. But they were definitely tugging on something…
There are so many “yo Momma” jokes that can be made from a lot of these slogans:
Yo Mamma is like a Vauxhall – Once driven, forever smitten.
Yo Mamma is like a Volvo – Tested by dummies, driven by the intelligent.
Yo Mamma is like a Ford – Quality is Job One
Yo Mamma is like a Toyota – Oh what a feeling
Yo Mamma is like a BMW – Sheer driving pleasure
Snicker….