Most of them seem to concentrate on just about everything on earth other than a car. As though they're really ashamed of their products or just can't see any differentiation. It's almost a rarity that one gets to see what the car looks like in car ads today.
I just get the feeling that the motor industry has forgotten what the K.I.S.S. principle is all about when it comes to car ads. The French have a wonderful expression for people who make things complicated and convoluted and end up producing something that even they don't quite understand. Literally translated, it suggests they are passing wind from a place a little higher than the orifice usually reserved for that purpose.
But suddenly, like a breath of fresh air, BMW, has come out with what I think is the most brilliant car ad I have seen for a year or so.
It's a full page broadsheet ad actually showing what is clearly a BMW car, with three leaflets under the windscreen wipers, advertising "Luxury Boat Sales, " "Private Jet Rentals" and "4 Carat Diamonds, " with the headline reading "It may change the way people see you."
At last, someone has remembered that wonderful old marketing fundamental: "It is not what you want to say but what the customer wants to hear..."
And when it comes to BMWs, there is no question that what most customers want to hear is not that you can get from 0 - 60 in five seconds or that your onboard nav system can find the nearest bottle store in a millisecond, but that anyone who sees you will think you have made it. Will believe that you are successful. Or even more importantly, that you will think you are successful.
Which is the essence of the BMW brand. Why else would they sell so many cars when even some of their entry level models are tens of thousands of rands more expensive than other marques that are just as quick, just as nimble and have just as many gimmicks and gadgets?
Ironically, it took me a while to notice that this ad wasn't specifically a car ad - it was an ad for BMW Financial Services, selling finance packages for Beemers.
Well, perhaps the BMW Financial Services people will have a chat to their marketing counterparts at head office and explain just what it takes to produce a great car ad. That simplicity and listening to what the consumer wants to hear rather than what the company has to say, is what makes for successful advertising.
A great ad and a great relief to me. I can now stop believing that absolutely all car advertising is absolute crap.
