Why are car commercials so dumb?

Why do car commercials appeal to the most primitive and nonsensical
human desires? Case in point is the VW commercial with the idiot
getting excited about overtaking a car on a curve. I would think only a
mentally challenged person would derive any pleasure from such a
commercial. So what's going on here?

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Why do car commercials appeal to the most primitive and nonsensical
> human desires? Case in point is the VW commercial with the idiot
> getting excited about overtaking a car on a curve. I would think only
a
> mentally challenged person would derive any pleasure from such a
> commercial. So what's going on here?

Those who can do, those who can't go to work in marketing and/or
advertising. Since they assume that the average person is as
dumb/lame/has no life like them, they write the commercials
accordingly...

All you have to do is look at most Budweiser/Bud Light ads to see this
principle in action....

Paul wrote:

> Those who can do, those who can't go to work in marketing and/or
> advertising. Since they assume that the average person is as
> dumb/lame/has no life like them, they write the commercials
> accordingly...

Actually you think you're glib and know what you're talking about, but
you don't have a clue. Permit someone who has worked in advertising and
who has had his campaigns run in the media to explain:

The ideas that the advertising creatives pitch to the client are usually
far far better than those that wind up on the tube. The client usually
shoots them down, and send the agency back to the drawing board. The
second time the agency generally comes back with "safer" work (read:
stupider). This can happen ten, or twenty times. Bear in mind this is
all done at the ad agency's expense. The client does not pay for
rejected work, only the final ad it buys. These hours are generally not
billable. (For contrast, imagine telling your lawyer, "I'm not going to
pay you for the defense work of the last ten months because the judge
rejected your argument and we lost.") A famed advertising man once
said, "Advertising is as good as the client will allow it to be." While
it's true there are some agencies that don't try to offer up good work
first, that will offer any stupid garbage to the client so long as the
client's check doesn't bounce, I happen to know that Arnold
Communication up in Boston, which does the VW work, is not one of them.
They surely know they are not doing their best work right now, but in
this retailing environment (despite what our president keeps saying
about the econony being on the mend and his policies working, the only
reason people are spending is interest rates are low and so they're
charging their future on their plastic cards; they're in for a rude
shock in a couple of years) they are probably just grateful to have a
client like VW. Many big shops have lost their bread-and-butter
accounts in the last four years, and many have had to close because of it.

VW is actually a good client. Your memory may be short, but back in the
1990s it did some absolutely terrific work, "Mr. Roboto" being one of
the funniest and smartest commercials I've ever seen. But as times got
tough after the stock market crash and 9-11, all cleints have gotten
more "retaily" in their outlook, which means they want less creativity
and cleverness and more "hard sell." That generally results in
commercials being "dumber," such as most of the ones you see today, and
even attempts at humor are lame and "dumb" because people are really
nervous in corporate board rooms these days, and there's less tolerance
for experimentation.

The best car commercial I've seen recently is one for the Maxima that
shows a man and woman coming back from what was apparently a fairly hot
date. They're at the front of the woman's house; he notices her Maxima
and says "Is that your car?" He touches it and suddenly a surge of the
excitement of the Maxima shoots through him: he seems himself driving it
at high speed, with her in the passenger seat laughing and having a
wonderful time. Imagines like these flood through his mind until we cut
to her taking his hand off the car. "Not on a first date," she says to
him with the perfect expression on her face. "...But would you like to
come in for some coffee?" That's the first good spot I've seen in a
long time. We'll have to see if it's the start of a trend or just an
abberation.

By the way, Paul, don't lump marketing and advertising together: the two
are like oil and vinnegar; the two camps don't like each other and have
completely different philosophies and outlooks. And they attract
completely different types of people. Most advertising creatives would
rather work in a Starbucks than in marketing.



John

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Von Herzen, moge es wieder zu Herzen gehen. --Beethoven

"The Lindbergh Baby" > wrote in
message ...

> VW is actually a good client. Your memory may be short, but back in the
> 1990s it did some absolutely terrific work, "Mr. Roboto" being one of the
> funniest and smartest commercials I've ever seen.

There's an old VW commercial, for the Golf, that had "Da da da" by Trio as
the music. They drove around, stopped when they found a chair in the
garbage, loaded it in the car, started driving again, then noticed how bad
the chair smelled, and dumped it back out... trust me, it was much better
than I'm describing.

Bill the second wrote:
> "The Lindbergh Baby" > wrote in
> message ...
>
>
>>VW is actually a good client. Your memory may be short, but back in the
>>1990s it did some absolutely terrific work, "Mr. Roboto" being one of the
>>funniest and smartest commercials I've ever seen.
>
>
> There's an old VW commercial, for the Golf, that had "Da da da" by Trio as
> the music. They drove around, stopped when they found a chair in the
> garbage, loaded it in the car, started driving again, then noticed how bad
> the chair smelled, and dumped it back out... trust me, it was much better
> than I'm describing.


Have it on a CD ROM. I liked it, but not as much as Mr. Roboto.

Now, talk about *old* VW commercials, one of the classics, for the
original bug, goes back to the 1960s: we see a neighborhood covered with
deep snow in the early morning light. It's quiet; nothing is moving.
Then, in the distance, one car, a VW Beetle, getting closer and closer,
then passing us, driving easily through the snow. Announcer: "Ever
wonder how the snow plow driver gets to work?"

:-)



John

--
To reply, remove "die.spammers" from address


Von Herzen, moge es wieder zu Herzen gehen. --Beethoven

> VW is actually a good client. Your memory may be short, but back in
> the 1990s it did some absolutely terrific work, "Mr. Roboto" being
> one of the funniest and smartest commercials I've ever seen.

Seriously? What was at all good about it? The guys sinigng?

Have you seen the VW suicide bomber ad?

http://www.boreme.com/bm/JAN05/a/vw-...-bomber/fr.htm

"Salmon Ellison" > wrote in message
...
> Have you seen the VW suicide bomber ad?
>
> http://www.boreme.com/bm/JAN05/a/vw-...-bomber/fr.htm

From what I've read, this was not an ad put out by VW, but rather an ad
produced by an independent party not affiliated with VW.

-=- Tom

How about http://www.bizbag.com/Cartoons/kennedy.htm ?

On 5 Feb 2005 21:50:52 -0800, wrote:

>Why do car commercials appeal to the most primitive and nonsensical
>human desires? Case in point is the VW commercial with the idiot
>getting excited about overtaking a car on a curve. I would think only a
>mentally challenged person would derive any pleasure from such a
>commercial. So what's going on here?

While I'm no particular fan of VW, some people derive pleasure from
(or at least prefer) cars with good performance. What do you buy cars
based on? How many cupholders it has? How many memory positions the
seats have? How "high up" it is so you can "feel safe"? How well a
car does in carefully constructed crash tests that are often
irrelevant to real-world collisions? How much money you will spend on
gas? How many grams of CO2 it emits per mile? How much crap you can
load in the trunk/wagon/hatchback?

Personally, I buy cars according to a combination of the following
factors: How much it costs; how much horsepower and torque does it
have; can I fit inside. If I made car commercials, they would be
filled with roaring engines, smoking tires, and outrageously dangerous
stunts. And if the budget allowed, fleeing pedestrians.