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

crashproof · October 2001

I love the Kia commercials. One is for the Sportage where the lady boasts about here RAV4 and gets egg all over her face by the lady with the Sportage and then is further humiliated by locking her keys in her trunk. The other one is for Kia's sedans and one couple is bragging about her car and when she learns from the Kia owner how "superior" her car and warranty is, she can't help but drink the water from a vase. Regardless of the brand's reputation, the commercials are funny and effective.

black_tulip · October 2001

I hate those KIA commercials. I have no idea why they chose to compare their cars with those from Toyota. It is sheer blasphemy to compare a Kia to a Toyota. I do get a laugh at the end though when they annouce the amount of cashback on KIA models.

crossedreality · October 2001

They're comparing them to Toyotas, not Jaguars. Hardly blasphemy.

odie6l · October 2001

Kia commercial where the 2 ladies fight over the parking spot at a local mall/shopping center.

Odie

dreadedrummer · October 2001

I don't remember what car it was for, but did anyone see the commercial where the little girl says "mommy, why am I named Savannah?" and the mom says "Because that is where you were conceived." The daughter then asks "But why is my sister called (insert the correct car name: I'll guess Continental)?" The mother just smiles while the announcer says "Some people like it for the back seat space" or some simular nonsense. I can't decide if I like it or not; I guess I'll have to see it again.

dpwestlake · October 2001

That was for the Concorde, it ends with the daughter realizing mom & dad did the "back seat boogie" and screaming "Oh, YUCK!".

I only saw it once, I wonder if it got pulled.

dpwestlake · October 2001

The kid in the car seat looked like she was at least 6 months old, plus the 9 months in the oven, would have mom & dad fogging up the windows of the brand new 2002 Concorde sometime around july of 2000.

dieselone · October 2001

The commercial that has been running lately absolutely drives me nuts and would definitely keep me from Chevy dealership.
The commercial I'm talking about is the one where a guy goes into the dealership talks to the salesperson and they get into the car. He immediately says he wants to buy and the salesperson has to talk him into a test drive. He proceeds to drive about 10 feet, slams on the brakes and says he has to buy this car. Oh my God! The marketing firm that developed this campaign should be canned. It says alot about the market Chevy is going after. Apparently they don't feel they can sell these cars to people who car about how a car drives.

cyranno99 · October 2001

yeah... that commercial somehow reminds me of a poster or two here

....

kenjabi · October 2001

I like the commercial for the new Mercedes SUV (M-Class?), where they show clips of the car being put together and tested. There's something appealing about the funky music in that commercial to me. I think it's done entirely with stringed instruments, but sounds computer generated.

And I HATE that Impala commercial too! What salesperson is not going to let someone buy a car until they test drive it?

jgrucza · October 2001

I love that commercial too! I've tried to describe it to my friends, but they don't watch much TV and it's impossible to really describe without actually seeing it.

The music sounds like something that would be in a Beatles song. I love the sound effects too, like the mud spattering the woman's face shield thing.

ab348 · November 2001

First, all of the current series of Dodge Ram truck commercials with Aerosmith. Not that they are all that awful but they are in what MTV would have called "heavy rotation" (the doggone things are on constantly!) and what the heck do they have to do with selling trucks anyway?

Secondly, there is a Honda Civic ad with a 20-something Tom Green type mocking a SUV owner who's filling up at a gas station by doing a moronic "chug-a-lug" schtick until the SUV guy gives him a dirty look. Tom G. jumps in his Civic and as he's pulling away yells something like "leave some for the rest of us!".

I think if I was on the receiving end of that I'd have to hunt him down and set him striaght. Not behavior you'd want to encourage, but Honda seems to.

cyranno99 · November 2001

GM is marketing it as the king of the jungle.... a group of lioness left the male lion to sit beside the SUV

Oh yeah.... the Mercedes commercial used the Janis Joplin song Mercedes Benz

dreadedrummer · November 2001

How about the Daewoo Lanos commercials. They show this car driving up the side of a dam, they talk about the amazing power, and then show some sort of large cat (jaguar?) which morph's into the lanos. Come on, it may be a decent car for the price, but that commercial stretches the bounds of reality.

cyranno99 · November 2001

Well... I suppose that potential buyers probably complain about lack of powers, especially with an automatic transmission. So they're just stretching the truth a little

a_l_hubcaps · November 2001

I was looking at the AMC Pacer website (www.amcpacer.com) a few days ago. Yes, I'll admit that the Pacer is one of the many weird old cars I'd love to own. Anyway, they had a video clip of an old Pacer ad. These two guys walk up to what appears to be a Ford LTD. One of them pulls off the driver's side door, revealing another door beneath. They then proceed to remove each body panel one at a time, until it becomes clear that there is, in fact, an AMC Pacer in there. Finally, they remove the LTD fascia, revealing the front of the Pacer, and get in and drive away. Perhaps the point is that the Pacer interior compartment is as large as the LTDs. Or maybe it's just supposed to represent "out with the old, in with the new". At any rate, it's a cool vintage ad.
-Andrew L

cyranno99 · November 2001

Hmmm... it would be cool if other car makers start to put some old ads on their web sites as well. I'd love to see old ads for the Ford Mustang and the Chevy Corvette.

dreadedrummer · November 2001

This drum corps I know put out a 50th anniversary video. Included in the video was an old VW Microbus commercial. It's been a while, but I believe the premise of the commercial was "Look at how many drum corps members you can fit into a Micro bus." In order to show how nimble the handling was, they showed it parallel parking. What they didn't tell you was that they actually pulled out of the spot and then ran the clip in reverse!

cyranno99 · November 2001

me of a very old commercial of a car with a fifth wheel for parallel parking... what a concept! It was an overkilled luxury feature...

robertr · November 2001

Dodge Durango SUV pulling a trailer(!) passes a Porsche Boxster on a remote straightaway. Then gets behind another Boxster in a curvy no passing zone. Woman passenger exclaims "Oh great, stuck behind another one of these." Implication is that Durango (with trailer) is faster and takes curves better than a Porsche?!?!? Do prospective Durango buyers really believe that? If so, no wonder some people drive SUVs the way they do. OK, practically nobody can be stupid enough to take this seriously, but then what's the point of the commercial?

crossedreality · November 2001

Are you sure it wasn't a Boxster commercial?

chevytruck_fan · November 2001

I haven't seen the durango commercial yet but I like the sounds of it, its just to get snobs who look down on suv's another thing to get mad about.

cyranno99 · November 2001

A hiker in the wood seems lost. He's surrounded by a pack of wolves. The announcer said something about safety/security. A Highlander passes by the hiker and someone inside the SUV threw out a bag of "dog" food for the hiker..... hiker feeds food to the wolves....

You had to be there

crossedreality · November 2001

Seen in a magazine, and add for a Porsche 911:

"We don't know who invented speed bumps, but we're pretty sure he wasn't German..."

cyranno99 · November 2001

just saw it last night, but I can't remember the song.... good song though.....

ghulet · November 2001

just noticed with these dumb new Pontiac commercials that 'Pass it On' is their new slogan. Um, rearrange the last two words, please.

I don't understand this entire TV campaign. The people in the commercials seem as though they:

1. Have never ridden in another car
2. Don't, have never, and will never, own another car
3. Couldn't go to Vegas, to lunch, skydiving, or anything with ANY OTHER car, including their own.

Based in their reactions, you'd think they all drove Yugos or something. A Pontiac for a week, sounds like a rental car promotion.

a_l_hubcaps · November 2001

ghulet-
I agree, the new Pontiac ads are dumb. I'm sick of car companies trying blatantly to target ad campaigns at young people. I am one of those young people, and I can assure the car industry that we think those ads are stupid. Just go back to making clever ads that don't target anyone in particular. They're better that way.
-Andrew L

dreadedrummer · November 2001

Has anyone seen the new Tacoma adds? They show some college age guys tipping over a sleeping rhino. They rhino then chases them and beats the heck out of the truck (although they don't show the damage, as though the truck was undamaged). They finally get away from the rhino and come up on an elephant. They then start to get out of the truck.
I found the commercial ammusing, but on further consideration I started thinking that it was in questionable taste. It was obviosly a parody of the old highschool/college practice of cow tipping. I have no problem with a little harmless ammusment, but when we went cow tipping we did not drive. Why is this important, you ask? There is traditionally large quantities of alcohol involved in cow tipping. So, by extention, you must assume that the same is true of exotic wildlife tipping. Assuming that this is true (and who would do something so stupid sober?) then you must believe that in this commercial Toyota is promoting drinking and driving.

crossedreality · November 2001

And, likely, breaking into Zoos.

chevytruck_fan · November 2001

New Cadillac add, the whole brand commercial, showing lots of great old cadillacs, bring back peoples memories, good way to go for cadillac's resurgence

crashproof · November 2001

The Highlander commercial was just weird and ineffective IMO. However, I do like another Toyota commercial (probably for a Camry). In it, the car and a gas pump are in a stand-off like a old western movie. The car wins (of course) and the gas pump topples over. Kinda funny in a hee hee sort of way.

I love the Mazda commercials. Zoom Zoom. Great theme song. Of course, I'm biased since I just bought a Tribute.

ed_scott0013 · November 2001

There are a few out there, but they're not as frequent as the other makes, however.

The one I don't like is the one where that girl keeps missing her bus (I think someone mentioned it before).

The ones I do like are the following:

-Two old Irish guys go into a pub. The bartender asks the two what they want. One guy says he wants the regular booze. The other guy says he wants tea. The people in the pub gasp in horror. Then the guy explains that he's the designated driver. So the other guy insists on having tea as well, because HE wants to be the designated driver. This goes on and we eventually see that the designated drive gets to drive the Porsche Boxter.

-I think this is older, narrated by Patrick Stewart. This is how the scripts goes (I think..)
"It's the car you own before you've even been inside one."
"It's the car you feel before you've even driven one"
Etc.
"For those who think they have got this youthful desire behind them, we have some bad news."
"There's a new nine-eleven."
"We'll be expecting your call..."

odie6l · November 2001

I just thought of a Good commercial that would be good for any of the SUV makers. Just like how Mitsubishi has been using young people and good music in their commercials....Wht not change the wording in Men At Works song to say " I WANT MY SUV " and have that great guitar solo while they show great shots of the SUV. Hey it could work.

I kind of remember back around '96 or '97 when Cheverolet made the Caprice into the Impala SS (only avail. in Black). It showed the docking bay of the Death Star and as the Impala SS raised up from the understorage (or what-ever it is called) you hear a voice over the loud speaker say " Lord Vader, Your Car Is Ready. " That was a neat comercial.

Odie

mhansen1 · November 2001

... makes me laugh! It is for the Chrysler Concorde. Young daughter riding in car with mother; asking her how she received the name Savannah. Mother's response; 'that is where you were conceived'. Than the daughter looks in the back seat at the baby in the baby seat and asks 'well; how was she named Concorde' ... at the same time looking down on the nameplate on the dashboard ... then realizing how the baby got her name. The whole point of the commercial is how much room is in the back seat. Not sure this will sell Chrysler Concorde's ... yet definitely nade me laugh

fischda · November 2001

A man ice fishing on a frozen lake...looking cold and bored. A Toyota Tacoma drives out on the ice and parks near the ice fisherman. The driver gets out, strips down and jump into an ice hole. He comes up three/four times and hurls fish into the bed of his truck. He gets out, and wearing nothing but a towel, glances back at the pathetic fisherman and gets back into his truck and drives away.

Then there's the other one where a group of guys return to their campsite in a four-door Tacoma to find a few bears chowing down on all their food. They get out and yell at the bears, who just growl and bellow back at them - enough to send any normal guy running. But these guys get madder, until one of them yells, "get 'em, boys!" And they take off after the bears to beat them up.

suvshopper4 · November 2001

mhansen1: I know the Concorde commercial you mean, and have seen it several times.

But last nite, I saw it again - with a different ending! The voiceover at the end now has the mother saying, "Concord Massachusetts (or Vermont, I forget which). Also, I think they've dropped from the soundtrack the little girl's reaction to realizing the baby was conceived in the back seat. Very interesting. I wonder if they got some flack for being risque. Or maybe there are two versions, depending on what time of day the ad is aired.

dpwestlake · November 2001

I saw that ad last week, the version I saw ended with the daughter yelling "Oh, YUCK!".

The individual network may have asked for a sanitized version.

PF_Flyer · November 2001

We took a family trip to the movies to see Harry Potter last night (movie was OK) and had to sit through almost 20 minutes of commercials and film trailers before the show started. Among the commercials was a bizzarre auto ad...

There's what looks like a union meeting of magical beings being chaired by a leprechaun who is saying that there's only a limited amount of magic to go around and that someone has been using too much. Various magical creatures like witches and faeries point fingers at each other until someone says that it must have been the "new guy", at which point you see an average looking humna sitting in amongst the creatures. he runs out and gets into his Chrysler mini-van...

It was just bizzare and left most of the people in the theater shaking their heads.

PF Flyer

Host

Pickups & News & Views Message Boards

j_hallgren · November 2001

Have not seen the original ending for a couple of weeks...now changed to "Concord..Massachusetts" and video edits done also..I miss that first ending...musta had some complaints!

ab348 · November 2001

I posted earlier about some of these, but I am finding just about all of the current crop of Chrysler ads extremely irritating.

The worst are still the Dodge Ram truckville ads which seem to be on every 5 minutes and have caused me to now despise Aerosmith. What does "Just Push Play" have to do with trucks anyway? In addition, I've now seen the Durango ad with the Boxsters that someone else mentioned and it annoys me too. That woman's voice is just aggravating.

In Canada they are running a minivan ad that is set up as if they are getting reactions of people leaving a movie theater about the film they just saw and people are yelling "I love it" except for an extremely irritating woman who is without words... but the premise is that they have just driven a Caravan, not seen a movie. You really have to see it to understand how bad it is. It's just awful.

Never thought I'd say this, but bring back "Dodge... Different" and Edward Herrmann.

suvshopper4 · November 2001

Yeah, I like and respect Edward Hermann, so he was okay in the Dodge commercials. It was funny seeing him on a creeper, still dressed in his patrician clothes. I guess his contract is now up.

But I had to laugh when Dodge promoted themselves as "Different"; at the same time, they were selling essentially the same products (Neons, minivans, 'cab-forward' cars) as their sister divisions, Plymouth and Chrysler. Different? Right.

lemko · November 2001

Different could be misconstrued. Isn't "different" a euphemism for weird?

cyranno99 · November 2001

the one where a just married couple fly a kite from inside of a car through the moonroof.... yeah.. try doing that at 70mph... fun fun fun!

johnnylinc · November 2001

I'd have to agree on many of the recent Daimler-Chrysler ads. What the HECK is "Drive=Love" supposed to mean, anyway?? The Durango/Boxster deal is just moronic, and the "Truckville" thing plays every 5 minutes where I live, too. Let's just hope we don't have to listen to it for the next fifteen freaking years the way we've had to endure Chevy's "Like a Rock". It permanently turned me off all Bob Seger music about a decade ago. I cringe every time one airs.

I also agree on the Pontiac "Pass It On" series; the people in those ads really, really need to get out more. I haven't seen anyone accept an Aztek yet, though.

I do like the VW ads from the last couple of years that were mentioned in earlier posts; specifically the one in New Orleans, the "Cooper" one, the one with the smelly chair, and the Golf in the tree. At least they're clever and inventive.

A couple more favorites, which aren't car ads but have a racing tie-in, are Dale Jarrett's UPS spots. I like the one where the little kid threatens to hold his breath until DJ races the Big Brown Truck; Dale looks around to see if anyone's watching, then squeezes the kid's cheeks together. The other one is where Ned (Dale's dad) says over lunch, very seriously, "If you want to race the truck, I'll support you." Dale says, "Dad, I'm not racing the truck." Ned gets a big grin on his face and says, "How 'bout some pie?" Cracks me up.

suvshopper4 · November 2001

I wonder how much GM money Bob Seger has made off "Like a Rock"?
Apparently it is enough that he no longer has to make albums (that I'm aware of).

I have heard the ads countless times over the years, and I have to say, they still work for me. More power to ol' Bob.

I like the use of giant-sized construction workers in the ads, too.

crkeehn · December 2001

All you see is a world of snow, with a small "gopher trail" moving over the hills. The gopher trail comes to the top part of a stop sign, you see a turn signal flashing beneath the snow and the gopher trail goes off to the left.

Kirstie_H · December 2001

I'm not a big fan of the Olds ads listing the names of people who are still buying a car (which will no longer be made). Is the implication that, because these people I've never heard of bought one, that I should too? I'm just not sure who their target audience is for that one.

kirstie_h
Roving Host
Edmunds.com

suvshopper4 · December 2001

Maybe Olds' target audience is ~other~ people you haven't heard of. Don't know if that is smart marketing, but it must be a very tough job marketing for Olds these days. They must have quite a bit of inventory left, if Olds is spending money to advertise.

Kirstie_H · December 2001

I'm sure they do since they seem to be heavily marketing a car that's no longer made. In my opinion, the best ad tool in that case is low, LOW prices!

kirstie_h
Roving Host
Edmunds.com

eharri3 · December 2001

Ever seen it? Just photos of guys abusin the heck out of their vehicles(Ford Bronco, Mach I Mustang, Honda Accord) with the older version of 'American Woman' playin in the background? Then the voice over says "SHE never asks if her butt's too big, SHE never cares if you want to hang out with the guys, SHE'S ALWAYS ready to ride..." I always get a kick out of that one. And it's soooo true...

MAkes me appreciate the vehicle in my life all the more.

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

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