Random Thoughts On Car Advertising That Annoys Me

“There are other Fucillio dealers, in New Jersey, I think so others may suffer at his hand.”

If he does have any dealerships in NJ, I am not aware of it, and I have never seen or heard one of his commercials–Thank God!

Of course, we have our own home-grown nitwits, like Brad Benson (former NFL player) who owns a Hyundai franchise on US Route 1, and whose radio commercials are incredibly annoying. After his son was arrested for his second drunken vehicular assault of another person (he apparently likes to run pedestrians down with his raised pickup truck), Brad’s business became noticeably slower.

Hopefully Brad is taking the time to do some long-delayed parenting with his wayward child, but what is particularly ironic is that Daddy’s commercials highlight “the idiot of the week” from the news, but those commercials have never featured his son. Imagine that sort of omission!

http://www.nj-criminalattorneys.com/former-new-york-giant-brad-bensons-son-arrested-for-drunk-driving/

http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-
democrat/index.ssf/2013/06/grand_jury_indicts_passenger_in_clint_bensons_truck_for_obstructing_justice_in_assault_case.html

I loved the old alka seltzer commercials, unfortunately the most effective commercials are the annoying commercials.
I have a friend that was a car salesman for a while. He told me dealers make more money off of used cars vs new.

I heard the same thing from a friend of mine who worked at a local Ford dealer. I’d gone in there looking for a used Taurus or Sable, and he made me a really good deal on a new Mercury Mystique that he thought would suit us better. He made the comment that he could make more money selling a used car. That car has gone almost 130K and is still going strong. Unfortunately when I was in the marked for a new truck several years later, he had moved south for a warmer climate.

Does anyone remember watching Bonanza when the new Chevys came out in the fall? They would run the show without commercials and then spend about 15 minutes or so showing off the new cars and trucks.

I used to enjoy seeing the new cars. But the modern commercials are a total turn off. I can’t think of a single car commercial that doesn’t turn me away.

SUVs and trucks driving 50mph through the snow covered forest.
What sane person does that?

I like the Fiat Viagra ad.

Maybe the Volvo wagon in the commercial was Paul Newmans’ 5L Ford V8 powered unit.

Off topic here, but this is my favorite car commercial. It’s so tasteful and riveting I would watch it again and again

Not my “cup of tea”. I was bored less that half way through the commercial. I prefer a commercial that tells me something about a vehicle. I found this one wandering, unfocused, totally devoid of information, and boring.

It’s just a personality-type thing. I love data, technical information, learning something. Others like wandering “soft” images and soft, mellow music. I’m the same way in other subjects. I’d much rather read “A Brief History of Time” than a novel. Novels bore me to death. A good book on something technical, now that’s interesting to me.

Hee hee. I thought zoom zoom was Volkswagen. Guess not. One of those ads where if you miss the one slide at the end you’ll never know who they are talking about unless you can remember whose emblem that is. They all must have had the same designer for the emblem-Mazda, Honda, Acura, Toyota, etc. Just take a circle and change it a little bit.

I kinda agree. I don’t like ads with no talking where you have to make sure you see the writing or you miss the whole thing. I multi-task and don’t like to be glued to the screen. Obviously they didn’t have Germans featured but one car was right drive and another was left. Must have decided to use it in multi markets by just changing the language.

I think that the folks on this forum by and large aren’t the target demographic for car commercials. There are a sizeable number of people that trade their cars in every few years, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, that’s where used cars that other people buy come from. Other people buy a new car and drive the thing for 10 or 15 years. Nothing really wrong with that either I suppose.

If you drive long distance and out of state a lot, you get kind of used to having a car under warranty and no problems.

Having a warranty doesn’t mean you have no problems. I drove out of state daily, many miles each way, for many years, and having or not having a warranty has never been a factor in my car buying decision.

I honestly don’t think a warranty expiration is a factor in anyone’s decision to buy a car.

I don’t even have to get past the first page to realize Ed Frugal and everyone so far would enjoy another forum I am a member of. Try commercialsihate.com. I think all of you will like it.

Yosemite: We had a furniture store that took 40+ years to finally go out of business. I guess they just didn’t like to rush into things. One of the stupid toys on TV my 6 year old Grandson always wants (actually he wants every stupid toy on TV) had the same $19.99 with second one free pay only $8.99 S&H. One day they changed to second one $8.99 with FREE SHIPPING!!! How can I pass up a deal like that?

Heh heh, I’m enjoying the lively discussion I started. Agree the people who post to and/or read this forum probably aren’t the target market for advertising, because the people here seem to be amongst the top 5 or 10% in intelligence, or at least in critical thinking skills, which is probably the same thing. Probably why I kill so much time reading these boards. I thought of a few more:

A local Ford dealer had an ad which was pretty much truth in advertising, the voiceover would say “Pay $279 (or whatever) for 36 months, then g i v e i t b a c k!” where the words “give it back” would echo as if being shouted into a canyon. That ad didn’t last too long, guess people figured out what it meant.

A car insurance ad I liked even though its from a company that burned me years ago, that I wouldn’t give another one of my hard earned dollars to if they were the only insurance company in the country, went like this: They show a car being damaged in some bizarre way, and the spokesman intones, “If you named your own price for car insurance, you may be on the hook for this yourself.” Because of course he’s absolutely correct.

Another campaign, from a subsidiary of same company, has the tagline “You don’t want insurance for somebody like you, you want insurance tailored to YOU”. The scenarios they show are funny, until you realize that what they want to do is put a tracking device on your car so they can monitor everywhere you go, and how you drive getting there.

Regarding car “warranties”. I probably shouldn’t open this can of worms, but it sure doesn’t stop all these shiesty warranty companies from trying to scare folks into buying their shiesty warranties. Now they’ve branched out into “Home Warranties”. I know its pretty much unanimous here that these so called warranties are worthless. I wouldn’t bother with them anyway because it wouldn’t be worth the extended aggravation of trying to collect. Much easier and cheaper just to wait until something breaks and then pay. Life costs money, things happen, can’t protect yourself from everything.

P.S. I think it was comedian John Caparulo (sp?) had a good bit about that, “If you order now, we’ll send you a second one for free, 'cause we really gotta get rid of this s—!”

Docnick: The old VW Beetle commercials were classics. When Volvo had their 9 out of 10 ever sold are still on the road campaign the joke between me and my gearhead buds was “Well. Technically the breakdown lane is part of the road”.

Commercials sometimes do not go into the specifics about an automobile. Within a 30 second time window, there is only so much of such an complex machinery that you can show. Remember the government motor commercial during the super bowl where two boxers were going at it? That had nothing to do with cars and no connection to customers. At least this Mazda commercial gives you a glimpse of the spinning triangle.

Speaking of showing automobile features, it can backfire when they show features that some customers don’t want. An example of one that I did not like was the Lexus self parking feature. Was it supposed to tell me I don’t have the skill or care to maneuver such an expensive piece of machinery?

SteveC76: No one advertised their vehicles being made from “high strength steel” until Ford introduced the aluminum F-150. Chevy. if aluminum is so inferior why are you so scared?

Rod Knox: The 912s and 914s. VWs in Porsche clothing. A buddy had a 912. They had a 3rd gear?!!!