Just One Thing Missing
I have sat through probably a dozen or so car commercials in prime time tonight alone, and I noticed something kind of odd. The cars are an afterthought. There are about a million shots of people standing in weird poses, drummers... uh... drumming, tons of clips of rock songs, rolling hills in the English countryside, curvy roads, some "Children of the Corn"-type kid making car noises, lots of wavy and out-of-focus cuts reminiscent of a Tony Scott-directed Nine Inch Nails video, and oh yeah here's a new car that has airbags in a new and interesting place. Or maybe they added cupholders. Or a light in the trunk.
I think the world's major car manufacturers are actually being run by their own marketing departments. They come to the CEO and give this lavish presentation on some new awesome idea they have for an ad campaign, which elicits the following reaction, "Wow. You guys sure know how to put together an impressive Powerpoint presentation. How can I say no to something like that? We'll have a new car design out within the week. Is that fast enough to shoot a commercial?" The marketing guys answer, "Oh, don't even bother with making the car. We're just going to add heated seats and ground effects to the 2001 Honda Accord. It's not even going to show up in the commercial anyway." "Thanks, guys. You've done it again." Then, they celebrate by going bowling with all their blue-collar factory worker friends from Detroit. And this goes on every day.
I'm sure the diminutive Japanese guy in charge of Subaru Motors America was quite thrilled when his marketing team came up with the idea to make a commercial introducing a new car to the world by not showing it at all. Let's hear it for Emperor CEO Fujiyama san! You not only saved your company a crapload of money by not requiring that they, you know, build a car, but you also managed to make me hate you. Congratulations.
This whole thing is equivalent to trying to sell shoes by showing a commercial filled with barefoot Somalian kids. Way to go, jackass. You've managed to simultaneously ensure that I have no idea what your product looks like and kill all your chances of making a lasting impression on the young, supple minds of America's youth. That's pretty impressive.
I think the world's major car manufacturers are actually being run by their own marketing departments. They come to the CEO and give this lavish presentation on some new awesome idea they have for an ad campaign, which elicits the following reaction, "Wow. You guys sure know how to put together an impressive Powerpoint presentation. How can I say no to something like that? We'll have a new car design out within the week. Is that fast enough to shoot a commercial?" The marketing guys answer, "Oh, don't even bother with making the car. We're just going to add heated seats and ground effects to the 2001 Honda Accord. It's not even going to show up in the commercial anyway." "Thanks, guys. You've done it again." Then, they celebrate by going bowling with all their blue-collar factory worker friends from Detroit. And this goes on every day.
I'm sure the diminutive Japanese guy in charge of Subaru Motors America was quite thrilled when his marketing team came up with the idea to make a commercial introducing a new car to the world by not showing it at all. Let's hear it for Emperor CEO Fujiyama san! You not only saved your company a crapload of money by not requiring that they, you know, build a car, but you also managed to make me hate you. Congratulations.
This whole thing is equivalent to trying to sell shoes by showing a commercial filled with barefoot Somalian kids. Way to go, jackass. You've managed to simultaneously ensure that I have no idea what your product looks like and kill all your chances of making a lasting impression on the young, supple minds of America's youth. That's pretty impressive.
posted by Vaughan at
9:05 PM
1 Comments:
The same could be said for oil companies. They have commercials that don't feature any pictures of their product, and yet they make billions of dollars every year. Sure, maybe it's the commercials, but it's far more likely that they sell so much of their product because people need to buy it. Same with cars. You have to get around.
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