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

roma007

I like the one where this guys sits in a car and seemingly in a traffic jam. He looks all frustrated for a short while and then honks the horn. It turns out that his car is on an assembly plant moving slowly and workers still building it.

johnnylinc

I absolutely cannot understand what Honda is trying to convey with two of its latest Odyssey ads. In one, a young couple begins loading baby stuff into the back of the Odyssey. They continue hauling junk out of the toddler's room; the little guy has a quizzical look on his face. They continue packing until the room is empty except for the crib; the back of the van is crammed full.

One of the alleged adults says something like, "Do we have everything?", to which the other replies, "Yeah; we'll only be gone for an hour."

Observations:

The van is so packed with crap that the center mirror may as well not be there.

If the driver has to panic-stop, a big pile of unsecured stuff will come flying toward the passengers, including Junior, with potentially disastrous results.

They're only going to be gone for an hour, so 99% of what they took is completely useless anyway.

In the other commercial, a frazzled couple is driving their Odyssey through a neighborhood late at night; a baby is sleeping in the back seat. They pull up in front of their house; one says something like, "She's finally asleep".

The wife exits the van, and the husband reaches back to the little one, pinches her foot, and says her name. The baby awakens and immediately begins bawling. The wife hears this & looks frustrated as the husband smiles and begins to drive away.

What sort of numbskull would treat his child so badly, and what sort of twisted logic is this, with the end result being that the dad gets to drive a few more miles IN HIS FREAKING MINIVAN???

If Honda spent more than four dollars developing these ads, they paid too much.

Tagline: Honda Odyssey--The van for total morons who have no business being parents in the first place.

Sheesh!

maltb

Sorry to say I haven't seen those and I'm not a Honda owner, but those ads sound great! I guess it all depends on your your point of reference. Also, guess you could surmise that you are not in their target for that vehicle.

alfox

Surely you're not looking at car ads to be accurate representations of the human experience. I haven't seen them, but I can tell you as a parent, they sound funny! Trust me, loading up to go out with kids it sometimes seemed like we were taking everything in their room.

I think they're meant to be a tad metaphoric, not realistic.

maltb

I guess you can tell who has kids here.

porknbeans

I was worried that how they were going to get by without the crib. An hour can be a very long time.

verozahl

I think that Honda's advertising, when they do advertise, is crappy. Stick to the basics: show some racing cars, explain value. Don't try to be kitschy.

suvshopper4

Why show racing cars if you're trying to sell minivans?

Those ads are geared toward the people who might actually buy and drive a minivan - young parents.
Seems to me, Honda got it right. It ain't kitsch, it's cute. Maybe not to you, but it is to the people who have little kids (who tend to be cute themselves).

crkeehn

I found both ads to be a scream. Any parent of a young child/infant will certainly identify with the first ad.

The second ad is similar in flavor to an Acura ad I just saw (probably same advertising company). The husband and wife are driving up a long winding road, the wife is reading a real estate listing as they are on the way to view the house. When they get there, the husband steps out, looks at the winding mountain road they obviously just drove up and announces "We'll take it." Both that and the second Ody ad celebrate the fun of driving.

rworrell

There is just a terrible Ford ad running right now. Voiceover provided by gravelly-voiced rockhead--unshaven, cap on his head, flannel shirt. He's sitting in his Ford truck at a boat launch waiting for the guy before him to pull his boat out.

"Normally, I figure a guy like that gets what he deserves"--cut to overweight doofus wailing as he chases his Chevy truck, which is rolling back into the lake. "But I guess I was feeling generous this time."

So, rockhead tows BOTH the Chevy truck and the guy's boat out of the lake. As he unhitches the truck, the doofus' surprisingly hot wife says, "Wow, that really sank fast."

Rockhead smirks, runs his hand along the box rail of his truck and says... "Yeah--like a rock."

This commercial is so incredibly smug and idiotic and annoying I just cringe whenever it comes on. Fortunately, we have TiVo, so I rarely have to actually sit through it, but man does this thing bug me.

I feel better having vented, though...

speedshift

The latest Lincoln LS ad bugs me for several reasons.

First, the theme is the same one you listen to when you call the L-M customer hotline and they put you on hold. And of course the only reason I call the hotline is because I'm "completely satisfied", not just "mostly satisfied", and I want to make a new friend.

Second, anyone driving a Lincoln LS at the subsidized lease rate of $399/mo. plus tax (and that should be everyone) can afford a racing boat like they can afford a castle in Ireland.

Third, anyone who can afford a racing boat aspires to better things than an LS.

But hey, it's all pretend.

verozahl

"And of course the only reason I call the hotline is because I'm "completely satisfied", not just "mostly satisfied", and I want to make a new friend."

speedshift, can we be your friends?

speterson1

...for taking "We Will Rock You", a Queen classic, and ruining it for me through relentless repitition EVERY night during the news breaks. What a cop out of an ad.

ab348

I have to admit, after disliking the current Lincoln ads initially, they have grown on me. The 3 Navigator ads - one with the lovely blonde whose date drops his overcoat onto a puddle for her; the one with the guy making all the power assists keep time with the music, and the one with the woman with the groceries in the parking lot as it starts to rain - plus the one for the Town Car that makes it seem like the guy is getting fitted for a suit; all of them have a certain style to them. Plus I like that theme song. Well done.

In contrast, here in Canada, Kia has started running their "swamp tour" ad for the miserable little Sportage again. Lord, no...

suvshopper4

Sure is a good piece of uptempo jazz that is used in that one Navigator ad with the guy keeping time using his power assist buttons.

swschrad

... just sitting there to rust.

johnnylinc

I certainly didn't expect to be on the wrong end of the Odyssey ad fan club! And, no, I'll probably never be in the target demo...:)

I guess the one where the 'rents load the whole roomful of stuff would've been mildly amusing had I seen it first, but I saw the other one first & it really put me off. I don't get the logic of portraying a guy who would deliberately drag his infant daughter out of the house and then deliberately rouse her from a sound slumber just so he could drive the Odyssey; I thought, "That's no way to treat a baby; what a pinhead." That set me up to find fault with the other one, too. Ah, well. Now, if the guy was hauling baby in an NSX or an S2000, it might've made a difference. ;-)

To me, a great kids & cars ad is the one by VW where the dad in his Passat W8 races the son on his bike--that one makes me grin every time I see it. The Odyssey ads just make me scowl. >:(

No offense intended; peace to minivan owners everywhere!

JLinc, properly chastened

crkeehn

and that's who Honda is targetting with the ads.

verozahl

Honda advertising needs some serious QC.

maltb

Go sow your seeds, wait a few years, and then watch them. You just might understand.

lemko

...I won't be caught dead in a minivan or SUV. I'm glad my girlfriend feels this way too!

stickguy

Send me pictures of your first vacation trip to the beach with 2 kids in your 3 series.

andys120

you obviously don't know Lemko, 3-series!LOL.

stickguy

I can't keep track of everyone's rides, so I picked the poster child for the anti-minivan crowd, since it happens to be way short on room for a family.

odie6l

the new F-350 super-duty commercial where it shows a ice breaker ship plowing through some heavy ice and you hear a guy talking about the ship and it having 6 deisel engines... then the ship get stuck and they say sometime the ship needs a 7th deisel engine.. and it lowers a F-350 onto the ice to help pull the ship free....

it's a neat commercial.. but I was more interested in the ice (to get rid of this heat wave and drought) lol.

Odie

ab348

That icebreaker commerical is among the most questionable I have seen in some time because they try to make it sound real. I simply cannot believe it.

seminole_kev

is absolutely retarded. "When they need an extra deisel..." My [non-permissible content removed]!

PF_Flyer

First thing I said to the wife was, "I can't wait to see the reaction THIS one creates in Town Hall"...LOL

PF Flyer
Host
Pickups & News & Views Message Boards

petra02

Ford marketing certantly isn't very creative. First, they take Queen's "We Will Rock You", depite the fact that "Like A Rock" is Chevrolet's ad. Having both these brands compared to a rock seems dumb to me, but fitting in the reliability sense.

Now, of course, there's the F-350/icebreaker commercial. Can anyone besides me guess where Ford got the idea for this?

To me, it seems reminicent of the GMC commercial that ran earlier this year; the one where the GMC hauls the rusty boat onto the beach, and the guy says "It's a bit of a fixer-upper"? Not my idea of a brilliant ad in the first place, but I never thought Ford would be dumb enough to try the same pitch [towing a boat] just a few months later.

Clap. Clap. Bravo, Ford.

Another commercial I hate is the pretensious "Who you callin' NEAR perfict?" Camry ad. Save that for Lexus.

swschrad

Dodge has that one sewn up

i_luv_toyota

The new ad with "Mambo #5" used as the song. But Toyota goes one step further, they replace the girl's names used in the song with Toyota car model names.

For example: "A little bit of COROLLA in my life, a little bit of MATRIX by my side."
And the poor "sunflower" girl with the Corolla sounds like she has bronchitis!

Even crappy songs aren't safe anymore.

svevar

Tonight, I saw a Saturn ad for their entire redesigned 2003 lineup and was really impressed. It showed people walking through streets and highways devoid of any cars. As they shuffle along, the people stop at stop signs, make right turns on red, etc. At the end of commercial, a shot of the 2003 L-series, VUE, and Ion is shown, with a voiceover that says something like "We do things differently b/c we never forget we're building cars for people." I thought the ad was unique and meaningful. It really had something to say about Saturn's values. On the other hand, I hate each and every vehicle Saturn has ever produced, but this ad was great. Has anyone else seen it? If so, do you agree?

svevar

Those "Mambo #5" ads (I've seen a few versions) are just further proof that Toyota ads are atrocious. I honestly cannot remember ever seeing a "good" Toyota commercial. Toyota's all time low: the "I'm Too Sexy" ad. Toyotas might be extremely durable and well-engineered, but sexy? Not a chance in hell...

Just as annoying as the Mambo ads, Ford now bombards us (at least in the NYC metro area) with their end of model year clearance ads, complete with Queen's "We Will Rock You" blaring in the background. The song is so over used that it has become a sort of cliché, as have Ford's repeated brags of making five of the ten best selling vehicles in the U.S. Ford outsells other brands. Does that really mean anything?

speterson1

By that logic, Budweiser must be a far better beer than Sam Adams, b/c I bet Bud outsells Sam Adams by at least 10 times...

petra02

Something that I would find uproariously funny would be if all SUV commercials all featured Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In the Wall". I can picture it: An Explorer drives through the ad, the announcer says, "Be like everyone else: Get a Ford SUV!" and, in the background, you can hear the children singing the chorus: "All in all, you're just a- 'nother brick in the wall..."

HA, HA, HAAAAAAH!!! It's funny 'cause it's true...

speterson1

Saw a new Outback ad last night where a couple drives slowly to a secluded spot through some rough terrain, you can tell they're looking for something. Then as they slowly approach a clearing, you see them smile and say something to the effect of "they're beautiful", as they show several deer feeding along a stream. Then the stillness is interrupted by a menacing growl getting louder, the deer perk up and take off, and finally a big black Explorer or Blazer skids to a halt beside the Outback. The dork driving opens his window and asks the Subie passengers, "what are you looking at?" Then the new AWD tagline, "if you don't get it, you don't get it".

Clever ad, made me chuckle.

i_luv_toyota

It's not only NYC, we here in Connecticut are overwhelmed (and I don't mean impressed) with those Ford commercials, too. Also the major reason Ford sells the 5 (of top 10) cars in America is because a high percentage of Ford cars/trucks are sold to fleets (rentals, state vehicles, etc.). It doesn't mean anything, it's like saying McDonald's makes the best burgers because they sell the most.

Another one that's being forced upon us is those god-awful Chevrolet "Walking on the Sun" ads. See those and that ugly Avalanche thing at least twice during each commercial break!

Those Honda ads with the "definitions" are losers as well. Plus the music in them is annoying.

bored

Well, I saw a Ford commercial last night. It was about the Ford Ranger. You could lease a new 2002 Ranger for Blah-Blah-Blah. Had We Will Rock You playing in the background. The Bad? The vehicle shown was a stripped F-150. Nowhere near a Ranger. Now people who just pay attention to pictures will visit their Local 31 Metro Detroit Ford Dealers will be looking at the F-150, and not the Ranger, and have paper shock when the F&I department calls them up. Of course, if they have gone this far, they might buy it............since they believe it is a Ranger in the first Place.

mliong

Now that was a terrible Ad campaign... That Toyota campaign was so cheezy, I still refuse to even consider a Toyota car as a possible replacement.

odie6l

I remember when Ford use to have "Have you driven a Ford lately?"...
My father had an '74 F-100 until he got a new '93 F-150. During this time he also had a CJ-8 Scrambler that was raised and set on sopme hugh tires... He had a license plate on the front that read "Have you driven over a Ford lately!"

Odie

verozahl

"I Love What You Do For Me" was actually a pretty memorable/kitschy campaign. Better than "Get the Feeling! TOYOTA!" anyway.

bored: Only way to deal with "Your 31 Metro Detroit Ford Dealers Think Ford First Think Ford First Think Number One We're Number One Oh Yeah!"
is to either throw out your TV or to personally piss on each dealer lot after hours. So far I've hit Huntington Ford (Rochester Hills), Dean Sellers (Troy), Varsity (Ann Arbor), and Briarwood (Saline). Well, Varsity and Briarwood might not be part of the Metro Detroit Obnoxious Idiot Advertiser Group... but I also scored @ Tom Holzer (Novi/Farmington Hills), Dorian (Mt. Clemens), and... well, if everyone does it, we can drown 'em and we'll be rid of those irritating ads.

They are, simply put, the worst ads on TV ever.

swschrad

always try for the left rear tire, then that's the car that they'll sell you cheapest.. all the farm dogs do that tire :-D

verozahl

Hit the tires?
Blows the mind... whatta new concept.
I usually aim for showroom glass...

mliong

I would have aimed at the salesmen. They're ruder than heck down here!

petra02

Living in SW Ontario, I, too, am subjected to the ranting, ravving ads of Detroit's Channel 7 [oddly enough, it's channel 23 @ my place. Channel 7 is a semi-Korean station, serving the Korean pop. of Kitchener]. Anyway, it amazes me that 31 Detroit dealers have managed to stay open, despite Ford's cost cutting. I figured they would have sold at least a couple of them to Hyundai, or something. The "31 Metro Detroit Ford Dealers" ad is forever embedded in my mind, and I doubt that's good thing, especially for a Canadian. It's not like I'm going to Detroit to buy a car [least of all, a Ford]. Suddenly, I find myself wondering if Eminem, in his pre-entertainment years, ever grafito-tagged a Metro Detroit Ford Dealer. With that jingle, I wouldn't be suprsied. Frankly, I'd be quite happy...

verozahl

I'd rather have your Channel 7, petra.

I won't nominate the Metro Detroit Ford Dealers ad for "worst car commercial of all time"... I'll nominate it for "most freakin' annoying, irritating, and negative-image-inducing" ad of all time.

Parodoxically, though, the ad is very accurate. If you go into any Detroit-area Ford dealer, well, you'll know that the way they advertise is part and parcel of their sales philosophy (I won't call it a "strategy" unless screaming is a strategy in your mind).

iluvmysephia1

all of a sudden start dancing around and after the announcer says "A little more" they sing Camry and dance around an '02 Camry. "A little more" Corolla! Ya! Ya! Ya! Just what interests me-more blahzay Toyota's up front and personal on my TV screen! Yucko! It's really true-commercials CAN and Do further drive the nail through the coffin for you! (Not that Toyota could do ANYTHING to interest me anyway!

porknbeans

One was for the new Mercedes E-Class where the owner does everything in his car (ie live, eat, sleep, goes to the dentist, etc.). IMO, awful commercial, too much on the guy and only one shot of the car.
The other was for the VW Passat with 2 guys stopping at a convenience store for munchies and a fill up. Each guy is sunburned on one side from riding with the windows open and the sun on their respective half. They end up leaving the station switching sides in the car after seeing each other. Again very little of the car, but a funny and cute commercial.

markvandersall

They have figured it out. Best car commercial to date is the one where the guy is trying to make it to the wedding on time. When he gets there, you are not sure whether he is there to break it up or if he's the groom and just late. It is the best yet.

petra02

I don't really like that commercial. I must admit, it is very well done; it seems less like a car commercial than a movie trailer at times. However, I just think there's not enough exposure to the car. The music and most of the scenes seem to point more towards the driver's perils.

However, many of the other Jetta commercials are very good, and entertaining, too. Have you seen the one where the guy is standing next to the car, and the salesman is walking up with a different potential buyer? So the guy panics, and licks the door to mark the car as his. Hilarious. I also like the one where the guy can't wait to get his Jetta, so he's on the assembly line as it's being built.

Also, Volkswagen's commercials really got the point across in the past. Think of the VW Beetle ads: A winter scene, with nothing else moving but a Beetle, and the caption, "Ever wonder how the snowplow driver gets to the snowplow?" And, of course, "Think small". Those are genius, unforgettable. I wasn't even alive at the time, but I think those slogans are some of the best I've heard in my lifetime.