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

ghulet

....I don't think the one with the woman in the three dresses (with 'Dream On') is bad at all stylistically, it's just that (at least on my TV, or maybe because of my cable?), it's like fifty percent louder than anything else. It wakes me up, literally.

stickguy

me and my son both like the new 'stang ad that was on during football today.

 

WHole ad is shots of the current car, with older models flashing in the background. Neat part is they play the Star Spangled Banner completely by engine note (revving it up and all).

 

Also lots of smoky burnouts and other images designed to encourage responsible, mature driving.

i_luv_toyota

What kind of slogan is that? That Buick is "Dreaming Up" that the LaCrosse is some kind of sport sedan?

 

Yeah, sure...

lemko

...that Buick is trying to promote the LaCrosse as a sport sedan from the commercials. Those shots of the two Buicks are cliche'd action shots that are shown in just about any car commercial these days. You don't hear squealing tires or revving engines, just Aerosmith. The woman next to the car is elegantly clad. She looks more like she's going to dinner than the race track.

 

Speaking of trying to make a car look like a sport sedan, does anybody recall the commercial with the red Camry on the deserted LA freeway? That was really silly. The Camry's about as sporty as my grandfather's black 1953 Plymouth Cambridge sedan.

ghulet

...there are two different ads for the LaCrosse (that I've seen). Lemko, you're talking about the one with the woman and 'Dream On' blaring. The other one (to which i luv refers) has shots of two LaCrosse racing around some cloverleafs on a deserted freeway, combined with shots of a father and son racing slot cars on an AFX-style track. It definitely implies that the LaCrosse is supposed to be 'sporty'. The commercial itself is nicely done (good photography, etc.) but the message is downright silly.

i_luv_toyota

That's exactly the one I was talking about. It looks like it's trying to give off an impression of being a "sport sedan" to me.

 

Maybe you just haven't seen that one yet, Lemko?

 

"Speaking of trying to make a car look like a sport sedan, does anybody recall the commercial with the red Camry on the deserted LA freeway? That was really silly. The Camry's about as sporty as my grandfather's black 1953 Plymouth Cambridge sedan."

 

Yeah, that ad was dumb. The Camry SE is mainly an appearance package to make it "look" sporty. As much as I like Camrys, they are not even close to being "sporty."

i_luv_toyota

One ad featured a guy backing out of his driveway and driving to, IIRC, a local store. On the way, a bunch of "active-lifestyle" people are literally chasing him and his Element to the store. At the end, it shows the bunch of tired "active-lifestylers" and says, "The Honda Element, Where will it take you?"

 

The other featured two guys driving their Element to various geographic areas (beach, mountains, etc.). They are shown riding their mountain bikes, as well as putting stickers of those aforementioned sites on their Element. Well, they run out of space on the back of the car so they put the sticker on the center of one of the rims. The commercial ends with the same tagline as the one above.

 

I saw both on ESPN News, so go figure there.

 

At least the end of the Honda "Year-End Sales Clearance" carolers is drawing near.

fintail

I'll have to admit I like the Toyota one where the kids are with the guy crash-testing the Siennas

i_luv_toyota

Car crashing in commercials is always a crowd pleaser!

fintail

I am hating the Honda Chrismas song commercials

andyman73

I would love to see commercials for the Lotus Elise, or the Skyline GTR VSPEC R34. Or any of the not available in the U.S. manufacturers.

john_324

Has anyone seen the Ford GT ad "the one" on television? It's the one featuring a new GT on a racetrack. Was it (I imagine) a superbowl-only ad, or has it shown up since?

lemko

...why would Ford even bother having a television commercial for the GT? It has a very small market due to its price. I don't see Ferrari, Lamborghini, or Aston-Martin ads during football games. Could you imagine this?

 

"Come on down to your friendly Ferrari dealer and get 0% financing or $50,000 cash back on the new Enzo! Offer ends January 3rd, so hurry!"

seminole_kev

the same reason they made the new car in the first place. Prestige and image. It is more to sell Mustangs and the like than GT's I'd suspect. Especially with the emphasis on the Ford brand name at the end.

john_324

Yeah, it's a "halo" car designed to get people to think Ford. The slogan at the end of the ad is appropriately "the pace car for an entire company"

 

While the Ferrari ad *would* be pretty funny, I do remember Porsche's ads from the early 1990s...not quite as expensive, but still...

i_luv_toyota

"I am hating the Honda Chrismas song commercials"

 

You and me both, my friend. They should be called "Crappy Honda Days," lol!

fintail

Those and the Lexus ads must do as much damage as they do good.

 

The Honda one that says 'ooh la la' at this basic Civic coupe was particularly bad...I'd ooh la la over many other cars first.

badgerfan

How about the Toyota pickup truck ad where the guy pulls out his neighbor's garage door to get his borrowed tools back, supposedly demonstrating the great towing capability?

 

Any one have any idea how easy it is to pull a typical garage door off it's tracks? I would bet you could do that with not much more than a small riding lawnmower! Not too impressive to the average pickup truck buyer, I would bet.

lemko

...the average garage door consists of a foam core sandwiched between two very thin metal sheets. The average person could probably grasp the bottom of it and wrest it off its tracks. I'd be more impressed if the truck pulled one of those solid steel roll-up doors you see on factories and warehouses out of its frame.

i_luv_toyota

Those ads are meant to be funny. I find all of them hilarious. These Toyota Truck "Moving Forward" ads are the best to come from them for a long time!

 

And now that the holidays are over, we could finally bid a fond (yeah, right...) farewell to all the Christmas-themed ads (especially Lexus and Honda). What a joyous occasion! No more bows or obnoxious carolers!

i_luv_toyota

A computer mouse breaks off it's computer and makes a trek towards the an open window. The open window overlooks the family driveway where which the Chevy Uplander is parked. The van flashes it's lights to acknowledge the mouse. Next we see the mouse with it's "wire" tail getting inside the van through the side doors. Then the obligatory rundown of features (like OnStar) is mentioned, ending with "An American Revolution."

 

That must've been one tough mouse, it didn't even break after a jump from a two-story house! Amazing!

 

Also, Audi using the "greater than" symbol brings back some bad math memories. I hate that symbol and it's "less than" cousin...

toomanyfumes

Where he tows the loser's Duster and the guy fantasizes that they're best friends.At the end of the commercial they start the old wreck up, and it does't even make that old Mopar starter whine!

seminole_kev

just saw that commercial. One of the few Dodge commercials that I've liked. Most of the other ones are too much "buy this truck/SUV to make up for particular er.......shortcomings" type of ads.

andyman73

Anyone remember the recent pick up ad, I can't recall the manufacture. Anyways, picture shows big rig, broke down, and a bit later a pickup shows up. Then the guy acts like he's gonna give the big hauler a tow. Yeah right, and Honda's gone build V8 powered Civics! Maybe that pickup can pull the bumper off. Thats about it. The engine weight alone would max out the payloads of most pickups. They could have atleast used a one ton dually, would have seemed almost maybe halfway believable, on opposite day, perhaps.

parisikov

Greetings:

 

I'm writing an essay on car commercials and seem to recall a commercial that had a line like:

 

"It's not your car; it's your freedom."

 

Any idea what company made the spot? Thanks....Bob

crkeehn

I don't know if this has been mentioned before...

 

I just saw a Toyota Sienna ad, which I guess is promoting the lengths that Toyota goes to safety test their cars. You have an engineer type and two children up in a booth, the children are observing as the engineer test crashes a van.

 

The children keep asking for more, until the Engineer announces they crashed every van and there aren't any more. The Children respond.. "How about your car"

i_luv_toyota

I think that was for the Chevy Silverado. Never seen it myself, but have heard of it being mentioned.

 

Chevy also did a similar version of this ad a few years back when they used a V6 Tracker to attempt pulling a semi.

explorerx4

post 2320. ok, tough guy, give it a try. mine wouldn't let my explorer go through it in reverse, no foot on the gas.

btw, you can play the 60 second ford gt commercial on fords web site.

like those dodge ram commercials with to 2 goofy guys. i can do without the durango ones with the husband/wife.

another thing, bmwusa has some short films on their website. they are a couple of years old, but pretty good. clive owen is the 'driver'.

john_324

Just have to say I've always loved the BMW films, and on the strength of them alone, Clive Owen should be considered for the role of the next James Bond...

seminole_kev

I too love those BMW films. "Star" with Madonna is a great one.

explorerx4

my favorite is 'The Hire'. the snicker at the end really gets me.

andys120

The one featuring the headlights that turn with the car on the RX-330 prompted a buddy to remark that Citroen had that feature 40 years ago.

 

True that, and some A-C-D* cars had it 25 years before Citroen.

 

*Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg.

fintail

There's this Toyota ad that runs on PBS...not for any specific model, just the name Toyota, it features a rolling wheel through much of it...the commercial drives me nuts. I hate it. Mainly because of the song, or the voice in the song...grating

i_luv_toyota

Yeah, I've seen that commercial maybe only a couple of times, but on regular TV channels.

 

This commercial is the one that introduced the "Moving Forward" slogan, I think.

 

The voice is kind of nerve grating, I think it would be better with a different song or singer.

 

"Hey, ho, up and go!"

i_luv_toyota

This featured a silver Civic DX driving through a downtown Manhattan like setting, with all the cars around it spewing money out of their tailpipes. The Civic, however, wasn't spewing any money, supposedly demonstrating it's superior resale value to the other cars on the road.

 

If it were me in that situation, you can bet I would've stopped and grabbed all of that cash! Or rigged up some type of net to catch all of the flying bills!

ed_scott0013

My friend showed me this commercial today and I personally found it hilarious. It's for the Citroen C4:

 

http://video.luxology.com/article/113004_1/Citroen_C4.mov

tmart

That is truly awesome! Wish there was a way to slow it down.

john_324

The more I see the Buick LaCrosse "Dream On" commercials, the more I kinda like them...except that I can't help but feel that they're for the wrong car.

 

Take the commercial as is, but subtract the Buick...then jump back a few years and stick in the new Mercury Marauder. Add more engine sound/exhaust noise and rock on.

 

Might have helped actually sell some of them.

1racefan

I don't know...My dad likes Buicks, and those guys in Aerosmith are about the same age as him now. :-)

explorerx4

that reminds me. in '74 my dad bought a vw beetle. there also was a 911 in the showroom. i still remember thinking 14000 and no radio? guess i was too young. in '91 i bought a mustang gt convertible and put the antenna in the trunk. it's still there.

gambit293

Just saw a lame, lame, lame Super Bowl commercial in which a bunch of bikers are scared away by a row of Ford Trucks, because doggonit those trucks are just so menacing and terrifying.

 

It's such a blatant admission that many people buy the trucks purely for image reasons.

speterson1

I liked the Super Bowl Mustang ad with the convertible stuck at the green light up in the frozen wasteland. Clever and wasn't obvious (the first time anyway).

explorerx4

i have to agree. it was good up the point where the voice said 'it makes you tough'.

odie6l

what is the song in the Citroen C4 commercial. I'm trying to place it. Here's a link if you haven't seen it.

 

http://video.luxology.com/article/113004_1/Citroen_C4.mov

 

Odie

i_luv_toyota

That "it makes you tough" tagline demonstrates the whole reason most people buy Super Duties in the first place. Most are bought because it supposedly makes the buyer look tough.

At least around here anyways, most SDs I see are unloaded with only the driver. They are usually shined up pretty good, too.

catgrrl

I dislike pretty much any ad that shows a couple...they're always the most annoying yuppies. The latest one is for some overblown Mitsubishi SUV piece of crap, where the couple is in the showroom and the friendly salesman is standing there, ten feet away, gesturing to the guy as to what to say to con his wife into going for the SUV (which she knows they can't afford)..."Well, it IS the perfect size for that family we've been talking about..." to which the airheaded female grabs the guy and swoons "OH HONEY!" I'd like to see a commercial where they take all these annoying couples and blow them up.

emmanuelchoke

The guy looks like a baked ham with teeth.

logic1

Who is more likely to buy an expensive new SUV? Annoying yuppy couples or the people who hate them?

1racefan

Call me crazy, but if the FCC had a problem with the Janet Jackson incident, I doubt there will be any "yuppie couples" blown up any time soon.

i_luv_toyota

I saw this ad the other night. It shows a bunch of cars sitting still with their wheels spinning (almost like the spinners rappers put on Escalades), people walking in place, and even a train spinning it's wheels on the tracks.

Then comes this new Prius, weaving in and out of cars "driving in place." The tagline had something to do with the automobile's evolution and how it never really "evolved" until the Prius came along.

I thought it was a pretty clever ad, though the Prius is not my cup of tea, not the new one anyway...