Car Commercials, the good, the bad, and the annoying!

ab348

Just so irritating (like a lot of reality shows, I guess)... as if anyone could get excited over a dull appliance like that.

crkeehn

I like the new GEICO ad in which the gecko and Taco Bell Dog are both competing for the position of GEICO spokescritter

km99cobra

Even though it's for Kia, great ad. "Should we tell them it's for all models of CARS?" "Nahhh." "Good man!"

johngenx

Don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but there was an old 944 Turbo ad that had a Guards Red 944T at full lock on a skid pad, tires howling. The background music was Alice Cooper's "Schools Out."

That was one awesome ad...

lemko

The jingle is popular, but the car is forgettable. A buddy of mine was singing the song once but he thought it was from an ad for Honda.

andys120

the old Mazda ad that featured James Garner driving an RX-7 convertible while the Mamas and Papas played "Go where you wanna go".

That ad just made me want to drive with the top down, immediately!

machiavelli

Two of my current favorites -

The Honda CR-V ads which subtly make fun of the Nissan Xterra ads, showing someone doing some crazy "extreme" sport, then crashing, and the people with the CR-V say "that had to hurt".

The Ford Thunderbird ad which shows a sports car pull up next to the T-bird, wanting to race. The guy in the sports car has his girlfriend get out to signal the start. The sports car disappears in a cloud of dust and tire smoke. The T-bird is still sitting there and the driver asks the girl if she needs a ride. Cool.

ateixeira

Yeah, and "what was he thinking?", in the funny CR-V ads.

Love that T-bird ad, too.

-juice

714cut

I would have to say the most memorable ad of the last few years has to be the Jetta ad where people are moving in time to the windshield wipers and the tunes. That is an absolute classic.

cslang

Cadillac has been running a spot -- with very effective, on-the-deck, heiney-hugging, on-the-track cinematography -- with the pay-off line, "Don't you ever wonder how race car drivers get TO their race cars?" Back in the 60s, VW won more than a few awards with a commercial whose punchline was, "Don't you ever wonder how the snowplow driver gets TO the snowplow?" One may be selling high performance and the other traction, but commercial concepts just don't get any more identical than that. At least Cadillac did a very good job when executing their borrowed idea. Maybe some sort of statute of limitations on honesty has run out.

PAman

LOL!

Any HONEST ad man will tell you that he will steal ANY good idea. What's bad is when you see two ads running for different products, and you can instantly tell they came from the same ad agency because they are SOOOOO similar.

As for copy-cat ads, most of you won't remember them, but the ZOOM ZOOM ads are very similar to ads that Volvo ran years ago. They had boxy Volvos coming off of a car hauler's trailer, hitting the brakes and doing a 180 degree turn, then racing down a highway veering in and out of cones and other obstacles just mere inches from each other. I had forgotten those ads 'til I saw the 'Automobiles' show that featured Volvo on the History Channel recently.

And, yeah, the ads with the kid doing something stupid, then the other kids asking, "what was he thinking?" are really good.

And, don't forget the Volkswagen "dah, dah, dah..." song. The cars are overpriced, but the commercials are excellent.

BORING award? ALL Ford trucks, ALL Dodge trucks, ALL Chevy trucks...which you see about every 90 seconds on local TV here in Texas.

And now the legal disclaimer (for realism, read this as FAST as you can): yourmileagemayvarysomeoptionsareextraseeyourdealerfordetailsnotallcustomersquailfyforlowinterestrate limitedtimeoffernotgoodinall50statesbatteriesnotincludedareyoustilreadingthis?basemodel$10,999 carshown$25,999offervoidwhereprohibitedbylaworourlawyers

Joe

PAman

Cadillac is running an ad for the CTS. It features a guy in a red and white '59 Eldorado Seville convertible weaving around congested downtown traffic (all old Caddies, in case you didn't notice) and suddenly he is on a deserted country road with the top down. Then Led Zepplin starts playing "Rock and Roll" when suddenly (ta da!) a NEW (dull gray) 2003 Cadillac CTS pulls behind it then passes it.

I guess that is supposed to make me want a new 2003 Caddy, but give me that red '59 ragtop ANYTIME over the latest 'Caddy that zigs'!

Joe

machiavelli

PAman, that's a good point - the ad agencies create these ads, not the car companies. Some people let their brand fanaticism get in the way - they hate an ad because they hate "brand x". If the same ad was pitched to "their" brand, they'd probably love it.

andre1969

The VW Jetta ad, where everything is moving in sync to the wipers and the music, makes me think of an old Plymouth ad I saw once. It was for the 1968 models, and had a catchy jingle. I think they called it the "Plymouth beat goes on or something like that", but they had wiper blades, turn signals, the fender-mounted turn signal indicators, lights flashing, people closing doors and trunks and hoods, EVERYTHING going in tune with the groovy music.

I kinda like that Caddy CTS ad, although I'll admit it makes me want the '59 Eldorado more than the CTS too! I could almost see a spoof of this ad, where the '59 Caddy hunts down the CTS out in the desert, along the lines of Steven Spielberg's "Duel" (just replace the Valiant and the tanker truck)

kenjabi

I've seen this ad a ton of times, but I'm not sure if it's been mentioned here yet:

Ad for Dodge Ram, where there's a runaway boat on a trailer rolling down a mountain-side road. Boat almost hits Ram head-on, them Ram turns around, gets in front of boat, hitches boat to rear (while moving) and pulls over. Then an RV with broken chains on back drives by and woman says, "Hey they have a boat just like ours!"

Question: How did the boat get IN FRONT of them in the first place???

ateixeira

The RSX ads were a virtual copy of the WRX ads, with the engine as the only sound track.

-juice

johngenx

There is a Porsche commercial that shows an older gent pulling out his 550 Spyder, and a Boxster encounters it on the highway. Decent.

andre1969

I was watching tv with a friend, and he didn't get it at first. When I explained it to him, he asked "So which car was the new one?" D'oh!!

machiavelli

Sounds like the same concept as the '59 Cadillac in the CTS ad, or the old Mercedes going to the crusher in the C-class ad.

machiavelli

I saw an oldie but goodie last night - the one for the VW Cabriolet where the kids are driving along a moonlit road, then they arrive at a party, but they decide just to keep on driving. I like the music in that ad.

beachnut

Yeah, I saw that VW ad for the first time last night as well (you must've been watching the NBA Finals too!). Also saw the Chrysler Sebring comm where the guy is looking for a tie to wear, but almost all of them had rips on the bottom, finally finds a good one, then you see him driving away in his Sebring convert, tie flapping like a wind sock!

andre1969

...the one where the kids with the Cabriolet decide to just hang out in the car instead of going to the party. Actually reminds me a bit of my college days. Sometimes my friends and I would just park somewhere kind of isolated, lay up on the rear deck of the '68 Dart (the angle of the rear window was just about perfect to rest your head), and just chill. I guess nowadays you'd probably dent a car if you did that! At leat this one girl that I knew would ;-)

Back then we coulda used a remote for that stereo, too!

porknbeans

It's by a guy named Nick Drake. Nice music, tragic personal story.

machiavelli

I KNEW there was a use for a stereo remote!

machiavelli

beachnut - I'm surprised that's the first time you've seen it. That's an older ad. I think they've been using it a few years now. They must only show it in Spring/Summer - convertible season.

beachnut

I prolly have, but since I've been on Edmund's now for the last year, I'm much more aware of these *important* issues ;-) Wife's thinks I'm a lunatic!

porknbeans

Welcome to the club!

beachnut

hehehe.... just realized that I made *wife* plural in my last post! Just thought I'd clarify that I'm monogamous 8-)

maltb

we won't tell.

For the record, my wife shakes her head when I say Edmunds.

PAman

Anyone remember Wayne and Garth doing it in Wayne's World? They laid there as the jets flew directly over them only a couple hundred feet off the ground. There are actually people that still do that around the fence at O'Hare airport, so when I saw it in the movie, I knew where they got the idea.

Of course, Wayne and Garth were laying on the hood of a stout '77 AMC Pacer. Funny...the AMC cars were often criticized, the company is long since dead and buried but when the producer was looking for a 'cool' car for the character in the movie to drive, he used a Pacer. The cars live on in movies....

Joe

andre1969

...that was around the time we did it with my Dart...back in the early '90's. Sometimes we'd go out to a little park near DC's National Airport, sit up on the Dart and watch the planes land. They weren't quite as close as in Wayne's World, but it was still kinda cool.

Gawd I feel old...reminiscing about the '90's! ;-) I even saw a Pacer for sale last weekend at an AMC show. Very tempting...

maltb

That's something quite a few people do, even big kids. From time to time I will take one of my kids in a Miata and go hang out as close to the landing path as we can get. We know we aren't aren't the only ones as the hedge next to the airport fence has a well worn hole in it. It's just one of those fascinations with heavy equipment and a marvel of modern man.

andre1969

...there's a spot not too far from where I live, where the Amtrak Northeast corridor crosses the river into the next county. It's not a very high bridge, and there's a little dirt service road that goes under it. I used to like walking under it and standing there, as the trains would roar by overhead. Kind of a neat experience, but it makes you want to duck the first couple of times!

crkeehn

You're just down the street from me.

I used to go to that park just off the runway for National Airport. Went there a few times to watch the fireworks and once or twice to watch the planes. That was also a good place to park and pick up the bike path that ran to Alexandria.

What did you think of last night's thunderstorms?

crkeehn

Is that bridge off of Conway Road? I pass that intersection every time I go to work in Bowie but I've never gone down it. This Summer, I think my boys and I are going to go exploring on my days off.

beachnut

live on in Kia comercials, too!

verozahl

Just saw the CL ad where the couple is racing up the mountains for a house-showing appointment. The guy is staring over the cliffs, dreaming of driving his CL-S around all the curves again, and says "we'll take it" to the real estate agent.
Acura has a great ad for this car!

I see plenty of CLs around. No one else makes affordable upmarket personal coupes anymore, so it makes sense for Acura to do so.

petra02

In my lifetime, the most agrivating commercials I've ever seen are Kia commercials. The thing that's annoying about them is that they're so haughty. They claim that, because Kia's have more features and a lower cost, they're better than Toyotas. They've even effecively "bashed" Toyota in one commercial, where the Toyota owner breaks the rear gate on her RAV4.

Okay, no offense to Kia owners, but I don't think Kia is in a position to mock an automaker that sells about one hundred thousand cars more a month than they do. Their attitude is just... dumb.

Now, those comercials were on about 8 months or so ago. Of course, there are now new ones. At least they're not bashing their competitors again, but their commercials are still, well, dumb. You know the ones: Where the old guy gets covered in sawdust? Kind of amusing, I guess, but I don't see what anyone would buy a Kia just because the commercial enertained them.

verozahl

I love the Kia Sedona commercials. I thought the Sedona bombed all the crash tests?

Benz commercials for the new C-Class (all models): "Soul." Ummmmmmmmmm... Benz is grasping at straws...

maltb

I think the Kia got 5* in NHTSA tests. The fact that the van weighs a bunch more than the competition aided in this. Of course, you won't see their commercials touting good gas mileage.

suvshopper4

Cadillac is running a TV ad using the rock song with the lyrics "Been a long time since we rocked and rolled" (Led Zep?).
Yeah, a long time. Like never.

Still, that hard-driving music is a good choice for a commercial to grab your attention.

machiavelli

Ignorant of history

suvshopper4

Enlighten.

machiavelli

When you say - "A long time - like never"

Back in the 30s, 40s, 50s, maybe even into the 60s and 70s, a Cadillac was probably as cool, hip, desirable, etc... as a Lexus/BMW/Mercedes, etc would be today. They didn't always have the image they do now.

suvshopper4

I remember Caddys new since the 1950s.
They weren't a rock 'n' roll - mobile. More for the Sinatra set.

Except for the King.

machiavelli

Well, if you define "rock and roll" as being a sporty "enthusiast's" car then, OK, but neither are most Lexuses. In any case, I just objected to the word Never. Cadillacs used to be the Standard of the World, waaaaay back when.

hood54

Recently Lexus has been running an ad where a guy comes out to the driveway and moves the car cover from a beautifully restored convertible (Oldsmobile?) and covers his Lexus SUV to protect it from the rain. The first time I saw it I yelled, "No way!"

lemko

...appears to be a 1953 Buick. What serious collector would leave his ride outside under a cover in the first place? I'd have it inside the garage for one AND with a cover to keep the dust off. Maybe the Lexus SUV is his wife's vehicle and he's a very henpecked husband.

verozahl

You're right on, Lemko. When I was a valet, a new Lexus RX pulled up, and the husband jumped out before I could do anything and cried "don't touch the car! my wife's very fussy about her dang Japluxmobile!"

I think that says it all.

I never got to touch the RX then... >:(

wiggett

Anyone seen the new Jeep commercial where the Jeep emerges from underwater? Hmmmmm.

Good thing there was a disclaimer "Not designed for underwater driving" Thanks guys.