Automotive Blogger

As a car guy, car commercials tend to catch my eye. Well, sometimes they do. Sometimes a commercial is made and released into the wild that makes everyone notice, not just car guys. The following commercials are a few of my favorites, in no particular order.

After the Dude, you bought a girl car? post last week, I got a few comments from people who were surprised that the Chevy HHR didn’t make the list. Do you think automakers design a car and instantly know what kind of person is most likely going to buy it? Makes you wonder when you see this commercial, which always makes me laugh. When you see the tagline at the end, are they saying that girls should get one because guys can’t keep their hands off it? That’s like saying the HHR is like the roofies of current production automobiles. Anyway, here’s the commercial:

A few years back, BMW created a site called BMW Films and had a few very well known movie directors (Guy Ritchie, Ang Lee, John Woo, etc) make eight incredibly good mini-movies that doubled as car commercials. The mini-films had recognizable actors (Clive Owen, Mickey Rourke, Stellan Skarsgard, Lois Smith, Madonna, etc.) and were longer than the thirty second spots that were common on television. What BMW did by putting this much time and effort into car commercials was to get consumers to actually seek out BMW commercials; as opposed to simply being exposed to them. The result was a landmark campaign that ran for four years that has been imitated with less success by competitors. The following is my favorite in the series:

I have to confess: I love lowriders. I would love to have one of these awesome hopping Impalas. This commercial is one of two I remembered from Chevrolet. The other one was for the Silverado SS, and at least I found the music for that one Return of the Tres - Delinquent Habits (if you wanna see/hear this awesome song, go to the link, click on Videos, the Return of the Tres - you won’t regret it). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find both commercials. If anyone finds the other one, I’d love to have it or a link to it. The music on this one is “I’ll be Around” by The Spinners. Good stuff.

Unfortunately, the newer Impala they’re trying to sell in this commercial looks really out of place. By showing this commercial and the culture that sprung up around the older Chevrolets, it makes everyone very much aware of the gap between those much revered older Chevys and the newer ones.

Since the end of the Police, Sting has had a bit of a battle getting his songs and video in front of younger folks. This Jaguar commercial was the result of then-manager Miles Copeland’s epiphany that their video for the song Desert Rose looked an awful lot like a car commercial. Copeland contacted Jaguar, and the rest is history.

There are a few weird things in this commercial. For some reason, Sting is being driven around the Nevada desert by one of Robert Palmer’s video girls, and boy is she ever taking the back way. Must be getting paid by the mile. Second, the other guy in the video, Cheb Mami, moves like a squirrel. You only see this guy at the end of each movement he makes, never in between. Third, when Sting closes his eyes on stage, I really hope he’s not messing up his pants with one of those eight-hour Tantric orgasms.

Since I couldn’t find the actual 30 second commercial for this song, I’m showing you guys the video. The commercial is pretty much the same, except with the text “The car that rock stars dream of”, or something cheesy like that.

Volkswagen’s recent commercials have been hit or miss, in my opinion. I’m not a big fan of the new ones with the three models under $17K VW going around cheering everyone up and giving folks reason to live. The ones with the accidents left me a little confused at first; very similar to when the vampires showed up in From Dusk Til Dawn.

The ones before that were hilarious. The clean but engineer guy throwing up VW and the too-cool-for-you supermodel both speaking American slang with a German accent kills me. Just listen for “Oh, snap“, “Ees definitely suckin”, “Vee-dub, representing ze Deutschland”, and “Vee just dropped it like it’s hawt”.

Trebuchet:

Crate:

and finally, Wrecking Ball:

For my last example of car commercial awesomeness, I present the not-seen-on-American-tv Honda Accord wagon commercial,
The Cog - not seen in America - to advertise the a href=”http://automobiles.honda.com/” target=”_blank”>Honda Accord wagon. The level of engineering and patience to get this commercial to happen is incredible to think about. The commercial was done in two takes - not one long one - and the only CGI used in the whole thing was to splice the two together and to fix the lighting on the door. That’s impressive.

–Will

car, commercial, Volkswagen, VW, Chevrolet, HHR, Impala, Honda, Accord, Jaguar, GTI, Sting, Delinquent Habits, Return of the Tres, Cog, Trebuchet, Crate, Wrecking Ball, lowrider, BMW, BMWFilms