Wed 1 Oct 2008
Around the Bend
Posted by anaglyph under Daft Advertising, Idiots, Stupidity, Work
[7] Comments
The Reverend’s Adventures in Advertising, Episode 2.
The advertising world has many peculiar little niches and enclaves, and one of these is the realm of the Car Commercial. Cars are to advertising agencies as cows are to Hindus – sacred beings that are talked about in hushed tones and showered with rose petals.
I’ve done the music and sound for a number of car ads and I don’t think any one product ever gets as minutely scrutinized and picked over as the automobile. And almost invariably, after the ad agency creative directors have finished conjuring up hyperbolic pitches full of unbelievable superlatives and interminable drivel, the majority of car advertisements end up being nothing more than pretty pictures of the car in question driving around winding country roads. All the client ever cares about is seeing pictures of the car. Car car car. They can’t get enough of their car. No matter how clever the copy, or how novel the conceptualization, all they want to see on that screen is pictures of the car. What’s more, they fool themselves into thinking that everybody else thinks their car is as fascinating as they do too, and in this they are, for the most part, completely wrong.
One particular car ad that came my way was no exception. As usual, it began with a phone call from the ad producer:
Producer: Hi. We’ve got this great spot that we’d love you to look at. It’s got your name written all over it!*
Me: Uh huh. What’s the skinny?
Producer: W-e-e-e-l-l-l, I can’t tell you too much about it over the phone. The concept behind this one is ultra top secret.
Me: Right. Well, I’d like to know something about it before I commit to it…
Producer: OK, I have some storyboards that I can send you, but it’s super confidential.
Me: No problem. Mum’s the word.
Producer: So if I fax them over now, can you make sure you stand next to the machine. Don’t let anybody see them.
Me: O-k-a-a-y.
Producer: Promise that you’ll stand next to the machine and take them off straight away.
Me: I promise.
Producer: Because this is really Top Secret. It’s all very hush-hush. We don’t want news of this idea getting out before we have it ready to go.
Me: Sure. I understand. Super Ultra Spy-Level Top Secret. I’ll read the boards and then eat them.
Producer: I’m sending them right now. Stand by. [Hangs up]
I wait expectantly by the fax machine. The pages of the storyboard slowly peel out. First frame: a car drives down a country road. Second frame: a car drives over a hill. Third frame: a car drives through a tunnel. Fourth frame: a car drives over another hill. Fifth frame: Closeup – a car taking a bend. And so on.
I think of a possible way I could leak this to the media: “You’re never going to believe this – their car can turn corners! And it’s got wheels. Yup, that’s right, FOUR of the danged things. Underneath. Yessiree. I swear on a stack of bibles – I’ve seen the badly-drawn pictures.”
I didn’t do the ad. I think they saw me as a security risk.
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*This line is usually followed by “We don’t have a lot of money for this one…” In this case it wasn’t.
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I’ll buy that for a dollar!
You know, I found, digging through the library’s archived tapes, a 35 minute long advertisement movie for the Chrysler 300. It wasn’t exactly great art, and honestly, it was just what we think of as an infomercial, but it was incredibly detailed. I mean, engineering stuff was in the commercial. They talked about the close gearing of the transmission and exactly what that meant to a person driving.
By the end of the film, I was very impressed with the vehicle.
Not to beat the dead youtube horse, but that ad for the Scout at least showed people doing something predictable in the vehicle.
How often do you load up the wife and kids and hit the Bonneville salt flats?
I’m sure you’re right Rev, but every cloud has a silver lining:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WR4XvsNenk8
If only you’d got this call…
The King
That car is drunk.
Wow. What a creative concept, a car that can do things.
I am impressed.
Casey & King Willy: Not all car advertising is bad. I’ve actually done a few good ones. Note that I said ‘almost invariably’ do they end up as yawn-inducing shots of cars driving around country roads.
The capacity for making good car commercials is vast, and there are the rare few shining examples of superb car advertising. But for the most part, people who make and sell cars are unable to view their product as anything other than an example of technology nonpareil. And mostly, they are wrong, because as you can plainly see any day on the road, most cars are conservative, boring utilitarian people movers. They are boring technologically, and they are boring to look at even in shiny beautifully photographed commercials. These people need ads that are interesting and quirky, like the Scout ad, or the Peugeot ad, but mostly they won’t buy that kind of idea. They just want to see LOTS of shots of the car. Driving around country roads.
Cissy Strutt: That car is off its grill.
Mike: Cars can’t make coffee. Although, in another memorable turkey that I worked on for Audi, the implication was that that the car was some kind of coffee machine. Seriously.
security risk? how did you get into the qantas first class lounge then?