Are Auto Ads a Forgettable Experience?

Ad agencies evaluate the effectiveness of their artistry using a "recall score." The metric measures how well consumers remember a brand and/or product within 24 hours of having seen its advert. A high recall score means the commercial hot-wired the product into the consumers' minds. A low score means the sponsor wasted their money. Although I watch quite a bit of TV, this semi-professional pistonhead can't recall more than a handful of car ads. So much for carmakers getting their money's worth.

One ad that managed to stick in my mental craw: GM's $150m campaign for Chevy's new "now you see, now you can't buy it" Malibu. The ads show a computer-generated facsimile of the ‘Bu zooming around intimidating Camrys and generally showing off its sleek new lines. At first I wondered if the ad agency also couldn't get their hands on one, hence the computer animation. Then I wondered where they spent the remaining $149,975,000.

But at least the Malibu is in production. Another ad GM's running shows an ethnically blended troop of kids with their ears against a Volt, listening to it hum. The hip young spokesman tells them it's "the extended-range electric car powered by the miracle of the advanced lithium-ion battery pack." And hey! "They expect they'll get up to 40 miles without a drop of gas." The kids gasp their appreciation like they're about to snort Pixies Sticks. "I've heard the future and it hums" the actor exclaims. The obligatory voice-over intones "Chevy- from gas-friendly to gas free. That's an American revolution."

What they don't bother to say, except in small print flashed momentarily at the bottom of the screen, is that you can't have get one– no matter how badly you want it. They also neglect to mention that the production model- whenever it arrives- will look nothing like the sexy beast whispering God knows what into kids' ears (where's Steve King when you need him?). Or that once you go past that claimed 40-mile range you're burning petrochemicals to recharge the batteries. Or that currently the only "gas free" model Chevy offers is a large diesel-powered pickup truck.

The manufacturers all seem Hell bent on saving us from our own tailpipe pollution (i.e. alleviating globally-warmed guilt). From Accords driving through tunnels lined with images of nature at its best to Subarus coexisting with Bambi, carmakers want you to believe that it's OK to buy their car; Mother Nature won't mind a bit if you do.

The most blatant example of eco-misdirection is from Toyota. They show a Prius made of twigs and leaves raising spontaneously from the muck of a bog only to return to it, convincing us (they hope) that their eco-mobile is one with nature. Just don't think about what's required to manufacture or dispose of those battery packs crammed within. Or the fuel oil burned to ship the cars here from Japan.

The award for the strangest eco-mercial shows a group of hit men trying to take each other out with water pistols, super shooters and water balloons. The message? "What if we could replace something harmful with water?" You guessed it: it's an ad for Honda's yet-to-be-released limited production Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car.

So hit men won't kill each other with water balloons (is there a hit man jobs bank?) and we won't kill each other with the Clarity because all it produces is water instead of that yucky greenhouse gas. Of course, we're not supposed to think about how much energy is used to make that hydrogen or what the by-products of that process might be. Or the fact that water vapor is a greenhouse gas. I'm beginning to think Norway had the right idea by banning car ads that extol the a car's benefit to the environment.

Meanwhile, trucks. Big. Macho Trucks. Ford, Chevy, Toyota, Nissan and Dodge all have the toughest truck. They're all the biggest, haul the most, tow the most, last the longest and offer "class leading" fuel economy. By implication, anyone who doesn't buy theirs is a weenie. And they practically take a sledgehammer to their truck to prove… some weird sado-masochistic point.

The Tundra ad best reflects this chorus of "any abuse you can take I can take more" pre-school of thought. The Texas Toyota hauls a trailer up and then down an iron teeter-totter poised over a cliff (I think) in a landscape that would give Mad Max the heebie-jeebies. What's the point? If you're ever performing truck tricks at a post-apocalyptic party, the Tundra's the way to go.

And that's it. That's all I got. Except this: a new study of auto advertising found that Japanese auto manufacturers reached 22 percent more audience than U.S. automakers and 27 percent more than European manufacturers. Considering the car ads in question, it's clear that the entire auto industry's reach exceeds its grasp.