I would never imagine James Earl Jones voicing ads for Hyndai…

First, on the ads: VW has always struck me as the most consistently on target for creating memorable ads AND brand recognition. I can’t believe no one has mentioned the ad where the gentleman licks the car to prevent the new owners from taking it home.

Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas in the atmosphere and yet we are rushing to produce hydrogen cars? Eegads! Ethanol stores less energy than gasoline and takes more to make? Yikes!

Hybrids use funky things in their production that are not environmentally friendly? Wowie.

The only things I’ve seen to date that I like for the future are:

1. Plug-in electric – the infrastructure exists and producing electricity is cheap, easy to regulate, and can be done cleanly through a variety of methods. If this catches on, it will only advance the industry and our country’s electric infrastructure.

2. Diesel – In leaps and bounds, diesel technology is getting more efficient, cleaner, and producing greater power. The advantages over gasoline are substantial, and it’s still improving.

3. Hydraulic – Hydraulic drive systems re-use wasted kinetic energy. I use the metaphor of the spring…when the car slows down, the hydraulic system acts as a spring “compressing” (storing up energy). As you accelerate, the hydraulic system releases energy to move the car forward. Currently large, bulky systems used on UPS trucks. Yields thus far have been a 60% increase in economy and 40% reduction in emissions.

4. Ingenuity – BMW efficient dynamics seems to capture this best. On-demand water pumps, alternators that decouple and use regenerative braking to charge, steam-based closed system turbochargers that reuse exhaust heat, stop-start technology. All things that can be added to current cars and add up to substantial savings.

5. Mixtures of the above – A diesel engine utilizing a hybrid-plug-in system to allow electric-only operation at idle and low speed, hydraulic energy recapture, and efficient dynamics to help the car not waste energy.

Science always finds a way to escape those who don’t want it.

But we were talking about ads.

Joe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I62bOXfZXek

questionable taste maybe, but I laughed.

The deer are not discerning nor are they very smart. I work at a plant that has been considered an environmental disaster for what was dumped on the property 50 years ago and we have deer all the time. And like Subaru doesn’t use toxic chemicals to ensue that th body panels etc are clean enough to take the paint. Ahh, but Joe “I like Foreign car companies”, doesn’t know this and thinks that Subaru is greener than the Big 3 because the plant is on a wildlife preserve. The Big 3 made mistakes in the past and what is Subaru’s record in Japan. Consumers are dumber than the deer if they fall for that

Mercury produced this ad during my formative years & convinced me that I’d never be caught dead in one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZBZjG1YA2g

But it was still a great ad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPd2Jg-XHOE

…until you read the fine print “For demonstration only. Do not attempt” under each of these… Otherwise memorable.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=78hDOqnK1gA

*****

The ads I really don’t like is the series of Swap Your Ride ads from Ford, which thinks that we are stupid.

STUPIDITY #1: “We didn’t tell them we were from Ford. We told them we were market research.”

Um… have you done market research before? If you participated in Swap Your Ride, here’s what they most likely told you: “Hi, we are market research. AN AUTO MANUFACTURER would like you to test a vehicle to see how it compares to yours. You will be driving this manufacturer’s vehcicle for a week.” Yup, they were not told they were from Ford…

STUPIDITY #2: “We didn’t tell them what to say”

Um… if you have done market research, you are REQUIRED to give your opinions in order to be compensated that $$$ they would be earning. You are asked questions. In this case, Ford wrote the questions that market research asks to the people participating in Swap Your Ride. Yeah, of course they wrote the questions that make Ford look more favorable. When everyone in these ads says “I’m going to miss you” to their Ford, you know that was something that Ford wrote in for the Q&A session. So yeah, Ford didn’t tell them what to say.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T0Z839SRtg

*****

Also, whatever happened to those 2 inspired by Jeff Foxworthy stupider-then-a-5th-grader rednecks in the Dodge ads who love hemis?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnt1KjJXXf0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcw2H4W9TJk

The spikey rocks isn’t going to happen. Twisty roads are fun, but I’m not buying a car just for that, as I’d rarely make use of it that way.

All I’m saying is there is no use making TV commercials for pistonheads as they are a small percentage of the market. Most people see a car sliding sideways on a wet surface and ask themselves “Why would I ever want to do that?”

As for all the other commercials, I’m glad I’m missing them – and yet, I have most of the products anyway. Makes me wonder.

But I don’t envy Dynamic’s roads laid out in grids, lack of good driving experiences, or absence of spiky rock formations. One reason that car makers continue to run ads highlighting great driving experiences is because they DO exist — and for every happy Olds 88 driver toddling back and forth to work, there’s a Corolla driver listening to NPR and dreaming of a weekend drive in the twisties in something really exciting.

Hope to see you on the winding roads and spiky rocks some day…

Another 4th gen Camaro ad that used Jimi Hendrix’s “Let me stand next to your fire” as background music is another classic.

My point being, household appliances are not advertised to the same degree as cars, yet we all have a houseful of appliances. Maybe the automakers just don’t need to advertise nearly as much. Anyone not heard of a car maker called Chevrolet? Anyone not heard of Toyota?

I watch very little TV (and no cable/satellite) so maybe I just missed them. Maybe there are lots of appliance ads that I just have not seen, but it doesn’t seem as if there are many. I really don’t think TV ads have influenced any of our appliance purchases. Or car purchases for that matter.

I bought a Mac because my brother had one and it’s just a lot nicer to use than a PC. The “cool guy” Apple ads havn’t influenced me at all – in fact they make me cringe.

I think one reason commercials are so forgettable is that the are still trying to sell the driving experience -zoom zoom, cars going fast around corners, cars going very fast along straight highways. You don’t see anyone in an appliance commercial getting off using their washer/dryer – the emphasis is on making chores easier, not having fun doing laundry. Cars are just transportation appliances. Don’t try to make me think I’m going to have wonderful driving experiences if I buy a certain car.

That brings us to unreality. Why show me a truck driving up to the top of some spikey rock formation? I never do that with my truck. Show me the truck at Home Depot, and show me how much lumber I can get in the thing – that’s what I do with my truck.

I live in a place where all the raods are laid out in grids. Why show me a car whipping through S-curves? I don’t want to do that in the first place, and even if I did, I’d have to go somewhere else to do it.

Stop trying to sell the sizzle, because we aren’t even all that interested in the steak.

Dustin Hofffman, A Volkswagen, Two Trunks.

Classic!

Nevermind, I found it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9OoqkXiKEM

I’m just a little too young to really remember the early-80’s commercials, but my bookshelves at home show a lot of automotive history materials on them. From what I understand, a lot of Americans really rallied behind the Lee Iacocca commercials. We had oil shortages, a massive recession, high unemployment, and places like Detroit and Flint were fading. Here comes this guy that looks like our grandfather asking us to buy American at a low price and we did. I do remember the ads where it was obvious he was losing touch with the market (really, how many stretched K-Car models with vinyl roofs and velour puffy seats did they need) and I read that he was against the Viper being built…and there he was with his last commercial sitting in one saying that he wanted to go out with a bang. He just connected – just like Joe Isuzu!

I’m just floored Toyota is actually running ads about vehicles. Most of their ads have consisted of a REALLY crappy cover of a crappier song with an image of a car spinning like a Red Bull-fueled four year old while they tell you the deal (and only the deal) for THIS WEEKEND ONLY!!! (Cycle repeats on Monday.)

Can I BE THE BIG BAD DADDY DAWG PLEASE???????? Sorry. Just got lost looking at a Ford Super Duty grill in the commercial. Proof positive that money can’t buy taste and that you need a chrome grill the size of an interstate billboard to be considered a heavy- or super-duty truck.

Is anyone else hating the site links after the last update. None of the links work like they used to and I find myself constantly clicking through pages. I hate the way it’s going to bring me back to the beginning after I post this. The content has gotten way better though, I just miss how easy it was 2 weeks ago to get where you wanted to be.

Thanks for posting the link to the VW “Unpimp your automobile” commercial. I had forgotten hwo good they were.

Actor playing German engineer, “What does this do?”

Kid, “It sucks air.”

Engineer’s female assistant, “It’s certainly sucking.”

Love it!

She was the only reason to watch it.

It’s not the Prius ad that’s uniquely bad, it’s the whole genre of ads that are collectively bad.

The Volt ad, by contrast, is uniquely bad, as it manages to tout the green credentials of a car that doesnt exist, may never exist, and simply can’t exist within the limits of current technology. I’ve never seen anything like that before… it has truly raised (lowered?) the bar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vptGhAUukc

Did it work for VW? One YouTube viewer writes ‘funny, I remember thinking “I wanna be in that car” back when it came out…’

brownie
Nice editorial, but your specific criticisms of the Prius are unfair.

I'm not criticizing the Prius. I'm criticizing the Prius ad. There's a big difference.

I know imports are sent here by ship.  However, Toyota is going overboard (no pun intended) trying to make it look like they (in general) and the Prius (specifically) cause no harm to the environment when just getting them here from Japan has a tremendous impact..

Batteries of any kind contain chemicals and metals that cannot be produced nor reclaimed in an environmentally-neutral manner. The only environmental benefit a Prius provides over other (non-hybrid) vehicles is reduced exhaust emissions. That's it. In the ad, they're trying to make it look like a Prius can be build from natural materials, then recycled into the environment leaving no evidence it ever existed. I'm sorry, but it ain't so, and trying to portray it any other way is fraudulent.

Ditto on your battery comment. This is an oft-repeated claim, but I have yet to see any data on the damage caused by Prius batteries. I seriously doubt this exists, too. And besides, does this criticism not apply to every other hybrid model as well?

All car companies tout their green credentials these days fairly or not, and few models are truly unique in any way. There is simply no way to criticize a single production car without criticizing several others.

Though I agree, it’s a silly ad. As are all ads in this vein – if you want to help the environment, take the bus.