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TV adverts have never made me buy a car. Mind you, they've put me off a few!
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As someone who works in this arena, and wryly smiles every time he hears Bill Hicks tirade against such folk... I offer the following:
It's not so cut and dried as: "man sees ad, buys car. The End", which in itself sounds like a MINI commercial! It's often part of the slow-drip approach. Above the line, below the line and through the line marketing works at different times in different contexts for different people and sometimes the same people. One wouldn't (you would hope) buy a car solely on an ad campaign, but subconsciously, it may have an effect in combination with other factors: good (or indeed bad) dealer experience etc to use just one example.
John M I do like the logic of that comment! Partly true I would say!
One last point: like it or not, we all see car brands as having images. These ARE affected strongly by advertising, and this is why manufacturers are so anal about their dealer marketing: CI, layout, "tone" etc.
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John M I do like the logic of that comment! Partly true I would say!
I'm just glad I haven't bought a Merc C class ('I'll see your idea and raise it') or certain Mazdas ('zoom zoom') :-)
Ones I remember and like are the Renault Scenic-as-a-dog(!) and Corsa hide-and-seek (music by John Peel favourites 'The Fall'). The Yaris adverts are also quite good/amusing.
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I'm a pretty avid TV watcher and like clever / funny ads but I don't remember that BR advert!
I do recall there being a commercial TV strike many years ago, and Typhoo said that their sales had dropped off noticeably - people switch to generic / supermarket brands without the constact prompting to buy the 'proper' stuff.
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"commercial TV strike"
IIRC, the advertising agencies were really worried that it would awake their paymasters to the realisation that it didn't make any difference! Of course, that only works if everyone stops at once - as the tobacco companies used to claim, advertising only redistributes the sales, but as soon as one brand does it, the others have to follow suit.
Going off at a slight tangent, my feeling about the new Mondeo is that the lines that work well on the Focus do not scale up at all happily. It's pretty academic, as I wouldn't be buying new anyway, but I won't be buying one in ten years' time either!
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John, your comments are closer to home than you may think! Not invented by me is all I will say. : )
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The Yaris adverts are also quite good/amusing.
What, the ones that say the Yaris is bought by ruthless, vengeful, underhand women who don't like their Yarises being dissed? Total turn-off.
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>> The Yaris adverts are also quite good/amusing. What the ones that say the Yaris is bought by ruthless vengeful underhand women who don't like their Yarises being dissed? Total turn-off.
Errr... yes, those ones. Reminded me of my lovely wife :-)
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I'm sure the marketing people think the adverts make people buy cars or they would not spend so much on them.
The cog advert for the Accord made me investigate it further and I bought one - I had already established my criteria for buying the car and felt the Accord ticked all those boxes - then the advert came along and kinda of reminded me that Honda is more about engines/engineering than just cars and getting it correct matters to them (gullible maybe !).
The adverts I do not like are the Yaris ones, the Renault adverts and the VW adverts - driving at night (Golf) and mid life crisis (Passat) etc - I'm not sure what they are about.
My all time favourite now is the ASIMO advert of him or is it a her ? walking around the museum.
Before that is it was the older Golf adverts - the one with the squeeky ear ring and "if only everything in life was as reliable........" The trouble with these adverts is that as soon as you let people down after setting such high expectations, then you tend to lose customers for life.
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There was a fashion - I can't remember who ran the campaigns but I seem to remember more than one manufacturer - for shots of the car haring through burning and ruined landscapes. The intention must have been to reassure the motorist that the device would protect him from all the dangers out there, but the effect to me was a feeling of unease, threat and desolation. And the fact I can't remember the make - Peugeot? - shows that the ads had impact but didn't make a bond with the product.
No doubt the ads had been tested on dicussion groups of target market 25-45 year old male motorists all lying through their teeth and trying to sound macho. Half-witted marketing men often choose bad ads on the strength of such tests. I know this because years ago I used to do the tests myself, although not on car ads.
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"we all see car brands as having images"
Only all marketing men, who see everything as a 'brand', even, apparently, the Olympics!
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Oooh handbags! : )
Your comment about the BMW vs Audi advertising further down the page partly negates that comment, said Steve provocatively!
Why are people so anti-"marketing men"? Everything IS a brand, one can argue. The Olympics is most definitely a brand!
If you're not anti-capitalism, then why anti-marketing? Marketing people are there to help maximise company profits.... that's what we try and do. It's not witchcraft! You don't HAVE to buy... certainly not the strong-minded people on here!
I am the first to admit marketing folk, especially the creatives, can be a bit Nathan Barley (pretentious idiots for those who aren't aware of Mr Barley.... fantastic creation!) but for the most part it's about trying to compete in a crowded market. I do dealer stuff, so I don't get the chance to burn too many wheatfields or throw cars off buildings..
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