Car Commercials

[JohnBM01]

GTPlanet, hello again.

When you watch TV and you see a commercial, depending upon the quality of it and the message being sent across, that determines whether or not you want the product sold. In this case, we are talking about cars and trucks and all sorts of stuff. What would you nominate as a great commercial showing a certain automobile? I don't know many, but I'll start.

A commercial example of something good was a Porsche commercial. Before they shown a Porsche Boxster going down country roads, they shown a beautiful Porsche roadster from the 1960s (forget the name of it). That '60s droptop had a beautiful engine note. If you ask me, I wanted to pay more attention to the old Porsche than the newer one. Another cool commercial had NASCAR drivers take off with the SRT Dodges. I loved to watch the Viper and Neon SRT-4 go at it. I'm not going to say that "there should have been ALMS racers," or anything like that. These NASCAR guys gave these Dodges a good ride. And when they left the track, you see Richard Petty with his old-school #43 Dodge car (at least I think it was), and he turned on the car alarm on his old glory.

I guess an example of a dumb commercial would be a commercial whereas Saturn was advertising their plastic, dent-resistant body panels against all kinds of crap. To talk about a TV show that ranted on the Saturn Ion, here is what "Car and Driver TV" said as a final verdict: "We waited seven years for this?"

Let's talk car commercials. New commercials, old commercials, you name it. And to you all not in America, tell us about commercials over around your way. I mean, how are commercials about the Holden Commodore? Nissan S15 Silvia Spec-R Aero? Opel Astra? Skoda Octavia? Mazda RX-7 S (Mazda Australia)? Let's talk commercials here, folks!

 

[DQuaN]

In the UK most adverts for cars are all arty farty, or they go for comedy. Very few of them have cars driving fast, or race drivers saying they reccomend this or that car.

 

[Scaff]

Originally posted by DQuaN
In the UK most adverts for cars are all arty farty, or they go for comedy. Very few of them have cars driving fast, or race drivers saying they reccomend this or that car.

Thats because is would be a breach of UK advertising regulations.

It is a breach if the following are shown/detailed/portrayed in a car advert in the UK, and this includes any form of media (print, TV, etc).

The details below are taken from the Advertising Standards Authorty guidelines for the UK.


MOTORING

48.1 Marketing communications for motor vehicles, fuel or accessories should avoid portraying or referring to practices that encourage or condone anti-social behaviour.

48.2 Marketers should not make speed or acceleration claims the predominant message of their marketing communications. However it is legitimate to give general information about a vehicle's performance such as acceleration and mid-range statistics, braking power, road-holding and top speed.

48.3 Marketers should not portray speed in a way that might encourage motorists to drive irresponsibly or to break the law and should not condone irresponsible driving.

48.4 Vehicles should not be depicted in dangerous or unwise situations in a way that might encourage or condone irresponsible driving. Their capabilities may be demonstrated on a track or circuit provided it is clearly not in use as a public highway.

48.5 Care should be taken in cinema commercials and those in electronic media where the moving image may give the impression of excessive speed. In all cases where vehicles are shown in normal driving circumstances on public roads they should be seen not to exceed UK speed limits.

48.6 When making environmental claims for their products, marketers should conform with the rules on Environmental Claims.

48.7 Prices quoted should correspond to the vehicles illustrated. For example, it is not acceptable to feature only a top-of-the-range model alongside the starting price for that range.

48.8 Safety claims should not exaggerate the benefit to consumers. Marketers should not make absolute claims about safety unless they hold evidence to support them.


As a result car adverts in the UK are dull to say the least, its all incase the naughty car manufacturers encourage us to drive like maniacs and mow down scores of people (tongue firmly in cheek).

Its also very badly writen; for example while section 48.4 allows speed to be demonstrated in an advert if the car is clearly on a track or closed road, you would then be in breach of section 48.3 because it could be argued that by showing this you are encouraging people to drive in this manner.

Its a nightmare for manufacturers when trying to market certain cars in the UK.

Some will deliberatly breach or push the limits the regulations and get the ad run for a short period of time before the are pulled. Citroen (Saxo VTS) and Vauxhall (various rollercoster style ads) have done this.

Others will work around the regulations, Nissan did this with the 350Z campaign, using a series of still images rather than moving ones in the TV/Cinema campaign.

BMW just ran the BMW Films campaign, which are web based and not currently covered by the ASA regulations as they are not officially the work of BMW GB, but BMW USA.

 

[TsLeng]

Well, we have 1 ad for the toyota altis that has a stunt driver saying:" I won't use that car!!!!!".

Apparently toyota was highlighting the fact that the altis has superior traction control and can't be spun, hence the refusal of the stunt driver to use it as a stunt car.

 

[1X83Z]

Originally posted by TsLeng
Well, we have 1 ad for the toyota altis that has a stunt driver saying:" I won't use that car!!!!!".

Apparently toyota was highlighting the fact that the altis has superior traction control and can't be spun, hence the refusal of the stunt driver to use it as a stunt car.

Interesting - Michelin has a very similar ad running here, but for tyres. During filming for a "movie," the Michelin Man is driving but can't spin the car on take after take, infuriating the movie director. Coincidentally, the dummy car is a Toyota Camry.

 

[TsLeng]

Another ad from toyota was the ad of the year 2003.

It goes,

A cop was chasing a thief. After a while, the theif saw a toyota Unser(its a kind of MPV) and got inside.

The cop came, opened the door, stuck his head inside and paged to HQ saying he lost the thief.

Then, "The Toyota Unser, amazingly spacious".