What Car Does This Video Make You Want To Buy?

This is not a test. Do not attempt to adjust your display. What you are watching is an advertisement for a new car. But before you hit the jump and find out what car this is supposed to make you want to buy (trust me, you won’t be able to tell by watching alone), see if you can guess the answer.

Did you guess “2012 Ford Focus?” If so, you might want to look into collecting some money. Sure, by Ford Marketing’s standards, this very post (and your every comment) helps make this video a success… but what price commentary? Doug’s a likable puppet with a winning approach to the female of the species and some snappy dialogue writers, but he does tend to distract from… wait, what are they advertising again? Something about a car?

Here, for example, an “exterior”-themed video doesn’t even show what the Focus looks like on the road. Why go to the trouble of styling a car as handsomely as the Focus only to hide it behind an aggressively awkward orange puppet? Even the interior video shows the whole car, albeit briefly.

I’m sure plenty of people who know far more than I about the dark arts of marketing will say that any kind of buzz or attention for a new product is a good thing. I get that. The problem here is of limited attention and recall. When you’re selling a product that competes in a market awash with more brands, trims and nameplates than any consumer can keep straight, it’s fairly important that consumers understand the product’s identity. Or Ford’s the marketing plan for it’s hugely important new compact entry to coast off of existing perceptions generated by the outgoing model? Because the only real impressions that these videos leave are of the Focus’s banal features (heated mirrors!) and the comedic bounty that is corporate culture. When even the grocery-getter segment is experiencing something of a styling arms race, Ford can’t afford to hide its most important launch of the year behind a freaking puppet.