Advertising

This State Might Ban Gasoline Cars. Here’s Who’s Fighting Back

This week we speak with Mike Spagnola, president and CEO of the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA), about a proposed ban on internal-combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in Connecticut.

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Gone in Thirty Seconds: Super Bowl LVIII Auto Commercial Pre-Game Roundup


Football and marketing - does it get any better? In this era of fragmented streaming services, there are precious few moments of what was once dubbed Must See Tee Vee where one be assured hundreds of million eyeballs will be glued to the same message simultaneously. We likely will never have another shared broadcast moment like the finale of M*A*S*H, so The Super Bowl is it.


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GM, Stellantis Sit Out Super Bowl

Some of the best, or at least most memorable, Super Bowl ads of the past few years came from Stellantis or General Motors.

Remember Will Ferrell schilling for GM? Or that Bruce Springsteen Jeep ad? Or when the Soprano children were reunited, again for GM?

Yeah, well, not this year. Both companies are going to sit this one out.

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Chevrolet Has a New Slogan: ‘Together Let’s Drive'

Chevrolet will be debuting a new corporate slogan during the first game of Major League Baseball's World Series. The decade-old "Find New Roads" will be supplanted with “Together Let’s Drive” during a commercial for the Chevy Trax that’s focused on promoting the vehicle’s affordability.

The brand has had loads of slogans and some are definitely better than others. While we’re prone toward remembering whatever jingles were playing during our formative years, the true value of specific taglines can probably be measured by how long they stuck around.

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Cruise Ad Insults Human Drivers, Gets Criticized

Last week, General Motors published an advertisement for its Cruise autonomous vehicle company in The New York Times. The marketing effort makes the claim that “humans are terrible drivers” and has subsequently been chided by former NHTSA administrator and safety advocate Joan Claybrook.

The ad in question states that human drivers cause millions of accidents each year and asserts that “Cruise driverless cars are designed to save lives.” But Claybrook and the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety are accusing GM of being overzealous with an untested product in addition to exercising some bad taste with its marketing materials. 

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QOTD: Does Tesla Need to Advertise?

We mentioned yesterday that Tesla is going to advertise more. But does the company really need to?

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QOTD: Best Car Ads From The Big Game

Chris compiled the car ads from last night's Super Bowl this morning, and I added my two cents.

Now, it's your turn.

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Monday Morning Commercial Quarterback: Automotive Spots From Last Night’s Game

Over the past few years, I’ve made a point of live-blogging the Super Bowl automotive commercials on these pages. As it appeared, however, that very few automakers were spending the cash this year to hawk their wares - especially since the ongoing supply chain issues have made selling virtually anything as easy as doinking a field goal attempt off an upright - it was determined that it wasn’t worth doing this year.


But of course, I watched the game last night (as an Ohioan I can’t - by law - call it “The” Game) and made notes. So I’ll present, in order of appearance, links to each automotive - and auto-adjacent - commercial that showed last night, including one that might have been regional but is perhaps worth discussing.

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Volkswagen Group Pulls Twitter Advertising

Earlier this week, General Motors pulled its Twitter advertising. Now Volkswagen Auto Group is following suit. The company is recommending that its brands pause advertising on Twitter for the time being.

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Ford Decides Paying for Ads Is Stupid

Ford CEO Jim Farley has said he sees little reason for the automaker to bother using traditional advertising campaigns for electric vehicles. Considering how often I see the Ford logo grace whatever screen I happen to be peering into, this would seem to go against everything I’ve been conditioned to accept. However the company believes its EVs practically sell themselves already, with the executive noting that the Mach-E has been sold out for quite some time.

“I’m not convinced we need public advertising for [electric vehicles] if we do our job,” Farley said during Wednesday’s Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference.

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Super Bowl LVI Car Commercial Live(ish) Blog

The day is upon us. Madison Avenue rejoices.

Super Bowl LVI airs tonight, and with it comes the commercials. And, probably, heartburn – though I suppose that depends on what you’re eating.

I’ll be posting YouTube links of every automotive (and auto-adjacent) commercial pretty much as they air. Come join the conversation in the comments.

Regarding the game, I have no real dog in the fight (I’m a Packers fan) but as a lifelong Ohioan my heart leans toward the Bengals.

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2022 Super Bowl LVI Pre-Game Commercial Roundup

What’s more American than football? Marketing, gluttony, and consumerism have to rank quite highly, I’d imagine. Thankfully, we have a bacchanalia this upcoming weekend that celebrates all four and then some.

That’s right, for those outside the big cities of Los Angeles and, um, Cincinnati who have been caught unaware, the LVI-th edition of the Super Bowl will be played this Sunday, February 13th. As always, marketers will pay for access to those millions of eyeballs, thus the Super Bowl Commercial as its own genre of big-budget short film.

As in years past, this will be a two-part series for TTAC. Today, I’ll post the automotive and automotive-adjacent commercials that have been shared to YouTube. Some of these are the full commercials, while some are teasers. On Sunday evening, come back here for a live-ish blog where I post every automotive and automotive-adjacent commercial as it airs. Stay tuned, as I’ll be posting from a recliner very near to my fridge and liquor cabinet. Once we get into the third quarter there’s a decent chance I’ll make a few humorous typos.

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Let's Talk About a Terrible GMC Ad

We here at TTAC love it when there’s a bad car ad — because we get to rip it apart.

And now we have one from GMC — and no, it’s not the annoyingly Yuppie “I love it” people.

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Toyota Pulls Japanese Olympics Ads As Games Come Under Fire

The 2021 Summer Olympics, set to be held in Tokyo starting Friday, are proving to be quite unpopular, at least in Japan. And apparently, Toyota has taken notice and pulled the plug on its planned local advertising during the Games.

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Ford Introduces Gasoline Scented Perfume to Help Sell EVs

Ford’s marketing for the Mach-E is getting truly bizarre. Rather than stick to the traditional method of buying up advertising space and bombarding consumers with commercials, the Blue Oval has been branching out by introducing automotive-themed fragrances. However, the gasoline-scented toilet water the company has cheekily named “Mach-Eau GT” and designed to remind customers of what they’ll be missing when they transition over to electric vehicles.

Introduced at England’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the perfume carries notes of gasoline, rubber, and the pleasantly noxious off-gassing of interior adhesives that’s responsible for the new-car smell. But it’s exceptionally difficult to determine if this is a gag to highlight the olfactory superiority of electric vehicles or an earnest attempt to preserve the sensory experience of the traditional automobile. This is made worse by Ford’s Mach-E coming with synthetized exhaust notes designed to con the driver into thinking they’re driving something that’s burns gasoline. Are we fetishizing the past as we attempt to kill it or just mocking it?

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2021 Acura TLX Type S Picks Up the Pace This Weekend

The 2021 Acura TLX Type S will pace the field at the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, Ohio this weekend. The TLX Type S’ debut is one we reported previously, with more details available now than Acura had previously released.

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2022 Acura MDX SUV Insurers' Top Safety Pick

The 2022 Acura MDX SUV’s Top Safety Pick (TSP) from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety runs counter to all the racing around done in Acura’s commercials. The MDX is the automaker’s third vehicle to receive the IIHS’s highest safety rating, along with the RDX and TLX.

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2021 Bronco Badlands Podiums at Mexican 1000 Rally

A stock 2021 Bronco Badlands finished third in the NORRA Mexican 1000 off-road rally, driven by two Ford engineers. The podium finish came in the Pre-Runner Truck class.

Bronco engineer manager Jamie Groves and Seth Goslawski, another Bronco engineer, drove the majority of the 1,141 mile race across the Baja peninsula. Brad Lovell, a Bronco advisory panel member and prior NORRA winner, helped navigate and drove one stage during the five-day event.

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Connected Vehicle Sales Grow by 20 Percent in 2021

Connected vehicle sales will grow 20 percent in 2021, with a 10.4 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2020-2026 according to ABI Research, a tech market advisory group.

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BMW Art Cars Exhibited

BMW art cars debuted today, using artificial intelligence (AI) software to generate new works of art. In conjunction with Frieze New York, the fair takes place in Manhattan from May 5 – 9, 2021.

Frieze New York has works of art from over 60 galleries, mainly located in New York. A viewing room with over 160 exhibitors runs through May 14, bringing together galleries worldwide, and audiences who can’t travel.

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Ermenegildo Zegna Teams With Stellantis

Today, the Ermenegildo Zegna Group announced its affiliation with Stellantis. By 2025, the Zegna Group’s entire fleet of 200 will go green. A new green-car policy has gone into effect at the company, well known for its pricy clothing and accessories.

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2022 Hyundai Kona N Unwrapped

Hyundai rolled out the 2022 Kona N yesterday at its N Day, a digital showcase for the N brand. The latest N brand inclusion, Hyundai’s N and N Line will grow to 18 models through 2022. Hyundai expresses its ambition for the brand with the tagline ‘Never just drive’.

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Matchbox Moves Towards 100% Recycled Materials

Matchbox is headed towards 100 percent recycled, recyclable, or bio-based materials by 2030. Is this the end of die-cast cars as we know them?

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2021 Hyundai LGBTQ Partnership Announced

Hyundai’s support for the LGBTQ community continues. Announced today, it includes a new commercial, and sponsorships of the 32nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards and 2021 Outfest Fusion QTBIPOC Film Festival.

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CarMax Invites Customers to 'Do Donuts'

CarMax has invited customers to ‘do donuts’ during their test drives, a promotion with Dunkin’ Donuts. For shoppers who take part in CarMax’s 24-hour test drives today through May 16th, they’ll receive a $10 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card.

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The Week of Driving Autonomously in an Xpeng

XPeng, a Chinese maker of EVs, sent a fleet of XPeng P7s on a 2,284-mile, weeklong autonomous driving jaunt across six provinces, the longest by any mass-produced vehicles in the country.

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Hertz Offers Custom Vehicle Wraps on Rentals

Hertz will custom wrap a rental vehicle to mark an occasion or celebration, a program that appears to be available throughout their system in locations across the U.S.

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Too-Sexy BMW on the Catwalk at NY Fashion Week

New York Fashion Week 2021, which oddly enough begins today and ends tomorrow, marks the return of BMW of North America to the catwalk. BMW rejoins Fashion Week, a celebration of fashion, culture, design, and economic development.

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GM Hypes Norway's EV Leadership

Actor Will Farrell describes Norway’s EV leadership in one of the more amusing Super Bowl commercials, and how General Motors is looking to change all that here at home.

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Super Bowl LV Car Commercial Live(ish) Blog

It’s time for football! It’s time for commerce!

I’ll be updating this post with YouTube links to every car (and car-adjacent) commercial as the game goes along. Check back throughout the game for updates as each new ad airs.

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2021 Super Bowl LV Pre-Game Commercial Roundup

It’s about that time. It’s the time of year where we gather around the biggest screen in our social group with dozens of our closest friends and/or acquaintances we at least trust to bring the good beer. Time to share all of those great recipes you’ve been working on — whether for guacamole, wings, or a lovely new strain of a communicable disease.

Ahem.

Yeah, let’s not do that. Let’s stay home, make a small batch of guac for your own fam, and spring for the good stuff yourself since you don’t need to account for the one guy who brings a sixer of Natty Light when you’ve stocked the fridge with artisanal growlers.

Since the crowds won’t be too rowdy, you can finally pay attention to both the commercials and the big game. We’ll have live-ish coverage of the automotive-adjacent ads during the game, but as usual, some automakers have released their ads early. Check ’em out!

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Mini Backs Tech Startup Accelerator Despite Slow Sales

Backed by Mini, URBAN-X’s ninth early-stage startup is an ongoing effort to improve city life, in the midst of the automaker’s waning sales.

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Adventures in Marketing: BMW Says "OK Boomer" to Its Own Flagship Vehicles

BMW published a four-minute and change ad a couple weeks ago for the start of the virtual CES 2021 show. Though this would not normally be a subject worth covering, this particular ad seems to indicate BMW believes their own E65 7-Series is for ridiculous out of touch Boomers.

Marketing departments always know what they’re doing, right?

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Kia Reveals Its New Logo

Kia revealed its new logo and brand slogan while you were asleep last night, signifying the Korean automaker’s ambitions to become a leader in the industry by revamping nearly all facets of its business.

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Adventures in Advertising: What is the Creature in That Mercedes Ad?

You’ve probably seen a certain Mercedes-Benz ad this year. Or maybe in years past – I think the ad in question ran last year, as well, and maybe even before then.

It’s a holiday ad featuring one of the brand’s luxury SUVs and advertising a winter sales event for Mercedes.

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BMW Presented Golden Button Award by YouTube

BMW videos on YouTube accessed by more than one million subscribers have earned the German automaker a coveted Golden Button Award.

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Ford Hires EBay's Suzy Deering as Global Chief Marketing Officer

Ford has hired Suzy Deering as global chief marketing officer to help execute its plan to unlock customer and company value. Deering will join Ford as head of Global Marketing on January 4, 2021, from worldwide and North America CMO at eBay for five-plus years.

Deering will succeed Joy Falotico as Ford CMO. The company previously announced that Falotico, who has been managing both marketing and the Lincoln brand for the past three years, will be dedicated solely to her role as president of the Lincoln Motor Company, Ford’s strategically important and growing luxury vehicle brand.

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Adventures in Marketing: Ford Stretches the Mustang Name

Last night I was watching my beloved Chicago Bears stumble and bumble their way to a win over the Tampa Bay Tom Bradys when I saw an ad for Ford in which the company claimed they “electrified the Mustang.” My inner fact-checker was not pleased.

Yes, of course, Ford does have an all-electric crossover-ish (more like raised five-door, but Ford insists on calling it an SUV or crossover) called the Mustang Mach-E. It’s part of the Mustang “family”. So, in the strictest sense, Ford does sell an all-electric Mustang.

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GMC Hummer Reveal Scheduled for World Series

While General Motors still plans on debuting its all-electric Hummer on October 20th in a live-stream event catering to industry watchers and EV super fans, it will also be dipping into its marketing budget to give those watching the first game of Major League Baseball’s World Series a glimpse of the beast.

Two weeks from now, the automaker will pull the trigger on a synchronous media extravaganza guaranteed to place the electric behemoth in front of as many eyes as possible. In addition to the official debut and Fox’ baseball slot, GM has also purchased time during NBC’s The Voice — which is estimated to draw in around 9 million viewers when it returns for its 19th season.

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Adventures in Marketing: The Toyota Venza Attempts to Steal Subaru's Thunder

Toyota’s all-new Venza fills a two-row, crossover-sized void between the smaller RAV4 and the larger Highlander, and is essentially a return to what the Highlander was originally. To help draw in buyers to its resurrected nameplate, Toyota decided to use a long-standing Subaru ad trope: the family pet.

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Stacks of Gen-Z Won Incoming: Hyundai Ioniq EV Brand Endorsed by Famous K-pop Band

Finding the perfect celebrity endorsement occasionally means deciding which public persona aligns most closely with your corporate image — and figuring out how to lock down that commitment by waving a wad of cash beneath their nose.

The rest of the time it’s just a matter of hooking the biggest fish on your reel and dragging that thing into the boat to secure an all-important photograph together. Hyundai recently decided upon the later for its upcoming Ioniq sub-brand by tapping the K-Pop icon known as BTS.

While you’ve probably heard of the Ioniq liftback, you may not have known Hyundai plans to use the name to create an all-electric subsidiary mimicking exactly what the Genesis brand did for the automaker’s luxury vehicles. Odds are also good you’re not overly familiar with South Korea’s BTS, unless you’re a prepubescent girl or happen to share their taste in music and/or androgynous young men. But we can assure you that they are indeed international sensations — heartthrob material that Hyundai believes will make superb ambassadors for its upcoming EV brand.

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Honda 'Boycotts' Facebook and Instagram

American Honda has joined a cadre of sizable brands opting to pause advertising on Facebook and Instagram in order to “stand with with people united against hate and racism.” It’s part of a broader campaign, called #StopHateforProfit, in which activists push brands to boycott social media giants until they enact stricter regulations about what constitutes actionable language that should be censored/penalized.

Over the last few days, we’ve seen numerous companies adopt the increasingly popular campaign, yet the reasons for doing so seem as varied as their individual terms and conditions. Multinational consumer goods company Unilever said it will scrap all social media advertising for the remainder of 2020 in the United States. While most attribute this primarily to hate-speech concerns, the company also noted that the contentious political climate on those platforms (including Twitter) having become undesirable for its own advertising purposes. Coca-Cola is similarly pausing social media spending for a few weeks, it’s made it clear that it’s not joining the official boycott, despite claims to the contrary in the news.

While Honda’s involvement in the movement is a little easier to follow, there are still a few twist and turns.

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Should Tesla Start Advertising?

Tesla shareholders are scheduled to vote in July on whether or not the brand should start advertising product like every other automaker on the planet. It’s something the board and CEO Elon Musk have long resisted, and not without good reason. As a car brand, Tesla probably enjoys more free publicity than anyone else.

Musk has effectively mastered social media. He knows what buttons to press to earn more attention, and his one-man campaign has helped the company get where it is today more than the slickest ad copy could have hoped to.

Tesla also managed to spin this into a strength against would-be critics. Anytime someone laughs at the brand for not spending on traditional marketing, its acolytes point to the Musk talking point that cash is better used for development — a claim that holds some real weight, thanks to the brand having some of the most desirable electric vehicles on the market. But Tesla’s mystique won’t last forever, and it won’t be able to count on Elon Musk’s upper echelon Twitter game indefinitely.

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Bring Back National Cadillac Week

With no reason to risk going outside and industrial news at an all-time low, I’ve retreated into curiously dry hobbies as a way to maintain my sanity.

A substantial portion of my time has been devoted to parsing through old automotive catalogs and marketing materials. As someone who is notoriously difficult to shop for, dusty paperbacks that can easily be found for a nickel at any estate sale turned out to be ideal gifts… and I amassed a sizable collection. Over the weekend, I found myself going through vintage television spots — noticing they’re quite a bit different from the ads we encounter today.

While automotive marketing has evolved through the ages, there was a long stretch of time where companies basically just filmed a car driving around as a disembodied voice explained its strengths. This was back when advertisements featured voice-overs telling you that “ Quality is Job 1” at Ford, or a choir of voices joyfully acknowledging that they absolutely loved what Toyota was doing for them.

Today, I’m celebrating the 30th anniversary of a totally mundane promotion from 1990 called “National Cadillac Week.” While the free AVIS rental and cash back on your purchase weren’t unusual (then or now), I happened to encounter it exactly three decades after it originally aired — as if destined by fate. It was a glaring reminder of how much car ads have changed in that time period.

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Super Bowl LIV Car Commercial Live(ish) Blog

It’s that day – Super Bowl Commercial Sunday!

I’ll be sharing the automotive commercials as they appear during the game. Keep refreshing this post so you can stay up-to-date.

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2020 Super Bowl LIV Pre-Game Commercial Roundup

Time to celebrate America, undiagnosed head trauma, and the greatest marketing teams in all the land on Sunday night with the fifty-fourth chapter of The Big Game.

It’s an excuse to eat and drink to excess — but many people don’t need an excuse. More, it’s the one time per year where most people won’t be waiting for commercial breaks to get up and pee, since the commercials are often the best part of the night.

As I have no rooting interest in the game — I’m from Ohio, which means the only truly professional team here isn’t eligible since it plays in the NCAA, and my Wisconsin roots are disappointed in the Packers — you know I’ll be hitting pause on the DVR to re-watch the greatest short films trying to sell me something. And I’ll have my laptop at the ready, posting new commercials as they appear.

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Is CarbonPro Everything GMC Claims?

With General Motors razzing Ford back in 2015 for optioning an aluminum truck bed to save weight, thus improving fuel economy, it couldn’t pull off a similar move without a sea of mouths wailing warnings of hypocrisy. GM has been playing catch-up with the Blue Oval’s full-size pickup since forever, always framing the GMC Sierra and Chevrolet Silverado as the more robust choice. The company even launched an advertising campaign to prove its steel truck bed was the tougher option.

When the General’s full-sized trucks underwent a weight-loss program of their own, it was decided anything that opened or closed should be aluminum while the bed absolutely had to stay high-strength steel. Otherwise, it would be guilty of the same mistakes it accused Ford of. Despite throwing shade at Ford’s claimed lack of sturdiness for over a decade, the aluminum-sucks angle has been reeled back immensely over the last couple of years. GM even attempted to wipe all evidence of a comparative rock-drop test from the internet, possibly because it’s finally decided to embrace aluminum itself.

However, there’s already an alternative to the high-strength steel GM currently offers — the CarbonPro bed available on the GMC Sierra Denali and AT4 — and the manufacturer has prepared another stunt show to test its mettle.

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Super Bowl LIII Car Commercials Live(-ish) Coverage

Wipe that wing sauce and queso off of your chin. And put a coaster under that beer! It’s time for the Super Bowl – and, for those of you without any rooting interest whatsoever in either team, it’s time for Super Bowl commercials!

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2019 Super Bowl LIII Pre-Game Commercial Roundup

It’s time for that great celebration of Americana — the fifty-third Super Bowl. Sunday night, Patriots fans and Patriots haters will come together to watch the season’s championship game, against… a team from Los Angeles? Am I reading that right?

For the rest of us, the Super Bowl is basically a better Thanksgiving. Gorging oneself is expected, of course, but there are fewer awkward conversations with the great-grandmother or that weird racist uncle. And we get to watch TV.

Yeah, for me, the commercials are the best part. It’s an opportunity to celebrate excellence in short-form storytelling — while selling something. Like each of the last several years, I’ll be watching the game with my laptop in my, well, lap, updating a post every time a new car commercial appears. However, many of those commercials have already been teased or released outright prior to the game, and that’s where this preview comes in.

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GM Quietly Erases Online Ad Already Pulled From Television

In a rare victory for television, General Motors was forced to pull one of its obnoxious “Real People” ads earlier this week after Ford, Toyota, and Honda cried foul over its claims. If you missed our earlier coverage, the gist was that GM stated Chevrolet was the more dependable brand by surprising rival owners — who were definitely not paid actors — with totally reliable data…

One of the biggest problems with the spot was that the reliability-related praise heaped on Chevrolet’s vehicles was, in many cases, supported by data obtained from previous-generation vehicles. That gave the annoyed automakers solid footing to call the commercial misleading and deploy their lawyers. Earlier this month, GM’s legal team was sent a letter demanding the company stop making the reliability claims in its television campaign and was given until January 14th to respond to the demands.

General Motors ultimately responded by saying the ad had already stopped airing nationally and that it would be removed from local markets in the coming weeks. It noted that it stood by the claims. Then, earlier today, it also removed the commercial from the internet.

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Ad Cops Slap Nissan for Potentially Misleading Charging Info

The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), like the fictional “phone cops” of WKRP fame, seem to be everywhere in that country, keeping tabs on everyone’s every move. As we told you last month, in the UK, commercials are not even allowed to show frustrated office workers getting behind the wheel of a Ford Mustang, even if they’re shown driving sedately once the car leaves the garage. Dangerous influences lurk everywhere.

Britain’s ad cops are at it again, only this time there’s some meat on the bones of the complaint. Automakers often play fast and loose when it comes to describing the capabilities of autonomous vehicle functions, but electric vehicles are another area fraught with potential misleading info. Throw pricing and fuel economy into that group, too. Nissan recently ran afoul of ASA watchdogs after one of its ads suggested owners could partly recharge their vehicles in a hurry. Of course, this is technically a true statement.

What resulted was essentially a battle over the word “could.”

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Chrysler's Pacifica Ads Grow Mildly Risque, As All Minivan Ads Should

Of all the automakers embroiled in the Mad Men-era rush to plumb the psyches of American car buyers, Chrysler’s Dodge division stood head and shoulders above the rest in one key marketing element: sex. It sells, apparently, and Chrysler Corp. made sure to instill a little bit of it, overtly or subconsciously, into its print and TV advertising. As the circa ’66-67 “Dodge Rebellion” campaign gave way to 1968-70’s “Dodge Fever” gambit, the impact of the counterculture movement and America’s rapidly liberalizing attitudes soon became apparent in Dodge’s ad copy.

It was this era in Chrysler’s marketing history that spawned what’s arguably the most sexist (and psychosexual) car ad ever printed: Dodge’s 1969 Charger R/T ad, titled “The Eternal Triangle.”

These were sexy times for America, but even sexier times for Dodge, which had clearly grown too hot under the collar. The onset of the 1970s saw the brand put the tie-dyed shirt and address book in storage, trading its hedonistic copy for the far tamer “Dodge Material” campaign, and the rest is history (some of it quite embarrassing). Given this rich marketing heritage, it’s nice to see Chrysler attempt to spice up a family-oriented minivan with sex.

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Adventures in Advertising: I Love What You Do for Me, Chuck - Let's Go Places

If it wasn’t for celebrity ad appearances, I wouldn’t know that Jim Rockford James Garner thinks the Mazda 626 is a great buy, or that Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling chooses the Ford LTD over all other domestic two-door hardtops, simply for the cabin noise level. Meanwhile, red-blooded males across America still can’t shake those recurring thoughts of the Mercury Milan AWD V6.

We owe a great debt to Hollywood.

And Toyota now owes a big, fat check to Chuck Norris, a 78-year-old man famous for driving a Dodge Ram pickup in a show where violent men routinely and inexplicably dropped their guns in order to engage each other with fists. The automaker gets playful in its latest spot for a truck it can’t help but sell boatloads of.

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Honda's New Insight Ad Doesn't Make Sense

Honda has launched a new media campaign for the Insight, a model that stages its third reappearance for the 2019 model year. The media push frames other hybrids as ugly, boring vehicles you have to settle for in order to gain superior fuel economy. There’s a social media initiative that transforms everyday objects into something more interesting and a television spot where other vehicles mill around while covered in bubble letters that spell out “blah” or “meh,” with horns and engine noises to match.

But the whole ad seems counterintuitive. The Insight ditched its funky wheel coverings after the first generation, which was followed by the loss of the glass-back hatch. Now it’s a pretty normal looking vehicle. You might even mistake it for a miniature Honda Accord.

That’s not an insult; the Accord isn’t a bad looking vehicle, but it also blends in easily with traffic. A large part of that is due to its popularity, but it still calls into question the whole premise of the ad — which serves to portray other hybrids as mundane.

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Nissan's Kicks Ad Proves Automakers Can Still Do Marketing Right

Having released the pint-sized Kicks crossover into the North American market last month, Nissan needed marketing material to help boost visibility. Normally, car ads are platitudinous, offering little in the way of novelty to get us truly excited. The reason for this is because trying something different can result in an overwhelmingly bizarre experience. Kia’s reverse aging of Steven Tyler inside the Stinger GT is a prime example. It was the wrong rockstar for its target demographic and left us scratching our heads.

Other automakers allow marketing companies to pilot the brand into weird abstractions where they aren’t selling a car so much as an identity. Cadillac stumbled into trouble with this a few years ago, leaning into a more product-based advertising strategy ever since.

So what of the Kicks? The vehicle is clearly aimed at trendy youngsters seeking a good deal and some style. Will its ads cater to them, offering something vaguely informational, or will it be another televised dud?

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Mazda's New 'Feel Alive' Campaign Has Us Worried About Brand's Upmarket Push

Mazda’s new “Feel Alive” advertising campaign places consumers as its focal point as the company tries to market itself as an upscale and hip, enthusiast-oriented brand. On Monday, Mazda launched the first commercial — a borderline insulting collection of superficial phrases intended to get you excited about the brand’s new identity.

The spot itself is about as boilerplate new-millennium luxury car commercial as it gets. It opens with a series of attractive actors, all on the cusp of an important moment, as the narrator offers bizarrely simplistic lines of encouragement like “do that thing” and “take that step.” Granted, auto ads became far getting far less chatty about specs during the 1990s. But, over the last decade, too many car spots seem to be copying perfume ads — strange adventures in abstraction that say nothing about the product and cost a fortune to produce.

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Meet the Parents: Who Knew the Jeep Wrangler Was Human?

Humanizing animals is the easiest way to help kids sympathize with the plight of small, cuddly forest creatures, and thus the easiest way to turn them into staunch environmentalists. People do this because it works. It’s easy, and it sticks. How many non-hunters picture Bambi’s ill-fated mother when they consider taking up the outdoorsman life? Probably quite a few.

In the auto realm, humanization of cars is mainly the domain of Disney and Pixar and schlocky horror directors. Movies like The Love Bug, Cars, Christine, and The Car appeal to very different audiences, but they all succeed in humanizing their subjects to some degree. A car can be a living thing, menacing or cute, cuddly or lethal, if deep-pocketed filmmakers or marketing types desire it. We can even put ourselves in the shoes (brake shoes?) of a car.

Well, those deep-pocketed people have now humanized the Jeep Wrangler. It was born. It lives. It has a voice. But does it speak to you?

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Handsome New Cadillac XT4 Teased at Oscars Before New York Debut

Cadillac is showing off the upcoming XT4 before its official debut at the 2018 New York International Auto Show by tossing it into a handful of commercials scheduled during the 90th Academy Awards. While the television spots seem to be intended to whet appetites prior to the vehicle’s launch later this fall, it’s the best look we’ve had at the model to date. That said, careful lighting and smoke machines allowed the XT4 to show plenty of leg without unbuckling its belt and giving us a real show.

The overall design is on par with what we’ve come to expect from present-day Cadillac, with vertical headlights cutting deeply into the front fenders. However, it looks to be a more shapely SUV than everything else the brand currently offers. Styling was clearly a priority here, and every element that identifies a model as a Cadillac appears to have been exaggerated without going too far.

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Don't Be Fooled by Misleading Ads This President's Day

It’s not fair to say there’s no truth in advertising; commercials often show vehicles driving in a straight line down a dry road, and we all know they can do that. Only the most gullible among us thinks a new muscle car will improve their love life faster than Billy Dee Williams can crack open a can of Colt 45.

All too often, smokin’ deals do not await shoppers who leave the house without reading the fine print. And even that fine print can hide whether you’re actually getting a bargain. With President’s Day coming up on Monday, here’s a few examples of juicy car promotions that are sure to waste someone’s time.

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MLK Ram Commercial Cleans Up, Controversy Be Damned

Far be it for us to suggest ulterior motives in an automaker’s marketing strategy (!). Unless you’re living in a primitive earthen hut with no electricity and using a rocky coastline as a latrine, you’ve no doubt heard of the hubbub surrounding Ram’s Super Bowl ad, which placed images of hard-working Americans alongside the words of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oh, and there was a 2019 Ram 1500 in there, too, working hard, as Rams are known to do.

By the time a dejected Tom Brady flew out of Minneapolis in his fashionable dress coat, collar popped, Fiat Chrysler’s “Built to Serve” ad had the Twitterati spinning on the floor, foaming at the mouth. A controversy was born. But is this a rare example of the target of online scorn…winning?

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  • Wolfwagen I have worked as a manager in both union and non-union locations. The best union employees were the ones who were indifferent to the union or told them to get bent. The worst ones were the ones who would run to the union for every little thing, even when it was their own actions that caused the problem or because they could not understand their own contract
  • Harry HOW i RECOVER MY LOST OR STOLEN FUNDS:You should gather and document all relevant details about the theft, such as transaction IDs, wallet addresses, and any communication with the scammer if any, and then proceed to message SYLVESTER. G. BRYANT to get back your lost/ stolen funds by sharing the evidence you've compiled. he was the only one who was able to recover my funds I was so surprised he got back my money worth $52k but glory be to God and all thanks to him.. here is his contact below: Instagram: Yt7crackerszEmail: Yt7crackersz@ gmail,com
  • Daniel J I had read an article several years ago that one of the issues that workers were complaining about with this plant is that 1/3 of the workforce were temporary workers. They didn't have the same benefits as the other 2/3 of the employees. Will this improve this situation or make it worse? Do temporary workers get a vote?I honestly don't care as long as it is not a requirement to work at the plant.
  • Kosmo Tragic. Where in the name of all that is holy did anybody get the idea that self-driving cars were a good idea? I get the desire for lane-keeping, and use it myself, occasionally, but I don't even like to look across the car at my passenger while driving, let along relinquish complete control.
  • Bof65705611 There’s one of these around the corner from me. It still runs…driven daily, in fact. That fact always surprises me.