The 2015 Mercedes-Benz S-class now offers “sparkling headlights, each embedded with 47 Swarovski crystals”
Dis you ever see a sillier auto feature?
Enough to make me puke!!!
b
Also has “an available in-cabin aromatherapy diffuser.”
insightful: wow, that is almost as bad…
Where do these companies get these ideas?
b
I wonder what a Swarovski crystal is? I guess that is the idea. The subtle message is: if you don’t know what a Swarovski crystal is, it means you aren’t “with it”, so if you want to be “with it”, rather than obsolete, you better get a car that has some of them.
Advertising psychology. I guess it works, otherwise they wouldn’t do it.
The subtle message is: if you don’t know what a Swarovski crystal is, it means you aren’t “with it”, so if you want to be “with it”,
I never researched it but who the heck is Eddie Bauer…He rated your new truck and your daughters designers jeans. Weirdo!!!
And who is this J D Powers too.
I noticed that they stopped…I think…running those stupid Fiat Commercials. They were driving me nuts with this little car popping around. It was like a cartoon.
Yosemite
I never heard of a Swarovski crystal and a net search shows them to be an Austrian company catering to the jewelry crowd with subsidiaries into other areas.
My assumption is that the new Benz crystals are designed to flicker in the sunlight as well as at night and dazzle the rabble in front… 
A few younger guys around here get the same effect by dangling an old CD from the rear view mirror.
That sounds like as worthless an ad as the TV commercial some years ago (think it was for a Caravan) in which most of the commercial was spent showing a plethora of cup holders.
What a swell reason to go into debt on a rapidly depreciating asset; places to park your drink.
Marketing aimed at materialistic people who have throw away money.
I don’t know about the Swarovski crystals in the headlights, but if the Mercedes Benz doesn’t have seats covered with fine Corinthian leather like the Chrysler Cordoba, I don’t want one. I would assume that if the Chrysler Cordoba had seats covered with Corinthian leather, that it would be First Corinthian leather and if the Mercedes Benz has Corinthian leather seats, the leather used would be Second Corinthian leather.
Swarovski crystals are just cut glass, allegedly optical quality.
Chrysler actually came up with a Frank Sinatra limited edition car many years ago with a cut glass badge in the middle of the steering wheel. I think it might have been a New Yorker, but I’m not certain. It’s rumored that Frank called them and ordered them to remove his association with the car when his stalled out on him… again.
Eddie Bauer? I think he’s some kind of tree hugger naturalist. Why anyone would think he could contribute in any meaningful way to a car is beyond me. Now, if they cam out with a Hugh Hefner Edition…
J.D. Power actually worked for Consumer Reports and realized he could make a fortune selling awards, which is against CR’s corporate policies. That’s why I don’t believe anything J.D. Power writes. His business is selling awards, not rating cars.
most ads, not just cars, are rife with language than has to be…‘interpreted’.
They try very hard to slip one by us…even restaurant menus.
They even imply things that they don’t say ( KitKats do NOT crunch like that ) .
One of the worst implications that I cringe at every time is those winter ads that show the driver just popping on his wipers to clear an inch of snow…NEVER sweeping or scraping that snow off first ( wrecking the wiper mechanism in many vehicles )…THEN DRIVING AWAY WITH OUT CLEARING THE OTHER WINDOWS !
My god, how many viewers now think that that is OK ?
“Eddie Bauer? I think he’s some kind of tree hugger naturalist”.
@the same mountainbike–thank you for solving the riddle for me about Eddie Bauer. I owned a 1990 Ford Aerostar that was the Eddie Bauer model. I bought that Aerostar as a used vehicle and have laid awake at nights wondering who Eddie Bauer was and why Ford would name a vehicle after him. My curiosity was really peaked when I chaired a big governance body at the university where I was on the faculty and took the executive committee out to lunch at a nice restaurant. I took them in the Aerostar. The VP who was ex-officio on the executive committee was really impressed that my van was an Eddie Bauer. The Aerostar Eddie Bauer raised me up from being a peon faculty member to somebody really important. However, so that the high status the Ford Aerostar gave me didn’t go to my head, I didn’t drive the Eddie Bauer to work after that, but instead drove my 20 year old Oldsmobile.
I don’t know if anyone remembers it or not but back in the 1980s some people at J.D. Power got caught taking payola for dishing out an award to Subaru I think it was.
A few sacrificial lambs met their employment end and J.D. continues on doling out Made in China awards by the truckload…
Those Power awards are almost amusing…
Best car in the first 90 days of ownership…
Best car in the first 30 days of ownership…
Best overall car in initial quality…
Best in ____________yada, yada.
JD Power awards are as meaningless as Motor Trend car of the year awards
Motor Trend even had the Chevrolet Vega as their COTY at one time. In other years they selected a Citroen and a Renault Alliance.
No doubt someone was leaving a stack of unmarked bills on the desks of the editorial staff.
The J. D. Power Award for most money given to J. D. Power is… is a tie, between all manufacturers.
My mom bought an Alliance because it was COTY. Underpowered, ludicrously unreliable, but comfy, roomy for its size, and friendly. Made a 4-week trip from CA to East Coast and back in the back seat of one and was quite comfortable. It was traded in for a dreary gray Escort that was more reliable but no one liked at all as it just felt cheaply made and not at all clever. I wouldn’t have been happy heading cross country in it.
It’s odd how cars have such distinct personalities. The Alliance was flimsy, but sweet and friendly. The Escort was glumly efficient. It gave way to a Civic that is both cheerful and willing and exceptionally reliable, just what my 85-yo mother needs to drive around town
I’m amazed at how many don’t know what Swarovski crystal is…They have stores in a lot of malls and make some of the finest telescopes and binoculars one can buy!
My wife has a number of Swarovski items, including a set of candle holders. They are lovely on the dinner table, but she would not dream of having anything Swarovski mounted on her car.
After I wrote, wondering who the heck J D Powers and Eddie Bowers were I did a little searching.
J D Powers, I couldn’t find anything about the person himself.
Eddie Bowers his first accomplishment was patenting a quilted down jacket in the 1920s. Before that, they were not quilted and the down would bunch up. He went on to design cold weather gear for WWII bomber pilots.
So he is a clothing and outdoor clothing designer.
I guess the auto manufactures thought that if they put his name on your van, you’d catch bigger fish.
I’ve never gone to the store and bought something because someone else’s name is on it.
Well there was that Red Green sample pack of duct tape!!!
Yosemite
Eddie Bauer, the man behind the company was an outdoorsman whose company originally sold outdoor apparel in their line. That ford used his name to model an SUV s for product identification …no different from Subaru using LL Bean. It’s capitalism at it’s finest and cross promotion. “The Hemi” when hemispheric combustion chambers were a way to model up a motor and even today, so use. "Fine Corinthian leather…
We bought a Subaru Brighton Because a local Subaru dealership was the biggest I the world at that time, they aske for an inexpensive model with no extras other then a stereo, air conditioning and cruise. It was sign of being frugal. So the Brighton was an indication of being " cheap". Fit right in with us.