What The Hell Happened To Car Advertising? Vol: 2

Honda has some cars for sale.

Anyone want one?

This miserable effort pretty much sums up the state of car advertising on social platforms:

Phoned-in copy. Dull layout. Zero wit. The whole sorry business built on the assumption that if you can drop something into someone’s field of vision, you don’t have to worry about the concept or the quality of the idea.

Here are some more heinous examples.

Bland.

Generic.

Lazy.

Embarrassing.

This kind of work is all the more baffling when you consider the current state of the automotive market place.

Source: Statista

There’s no real market leader, it’s a battle for market share. 

A battle where a 1% or 2% gain could rake in millions.

The question these automakers should be asking themselves is:

“How can we differentiate ourselves from our competitors?”

Instead, the intent seems to be the exact opposite.

More “How can we blend in?” than “How can we stand out?”

As I said, baffling.

There are 101 reasons for this, but the principal one is that no one seems to care.

No one wants to put in the hard yards to unearth a genuine point of difference.

To outthink, outsmart, and outsell.

Not the agencies who should be challenging their clients.

And not the clients who should expect more from their agencies.

Yes, cars and trucks today are pretty much of a muchness, but whoever said the business of advertising was supposed to be easy?

I can think of many a creative who’d kill for a chance to work on an automotive account, to think big, find an edge, and cream the competition.

And I bet you could, too.

But that doesn’t seem to be what’s required anymore.

Perhaps everyone is comfortable with the share they have?

Perhaps they make enough money as it is?

Perhaps they don’t want to upset the applecart by getting into the nasty business of “selling”?

Perhaps all the marketing directors are pals and go off on skiing holidays to Telluride twice a year?

Perhaps.

All I know is that automotive advertising used to be the gold standard for our industry.

It was one of the main reasons why many of us were attracted to the business in the first place.

Today it’s a shadow of its former self.

Of the countless ads from the past I could have used to illustrate what we seem to have lost, I’ve chosen this one for the American Motor Company by Wells Rich Greene.

In 1968, AMC was about to go into Chapter 11.

Its market share was negligible and what it had was slipping through its fingers.

It didn’t have time to fool around.

It needed to sell some cars and damn quick.

When that’s your brief, you don’t mess about with “relationships” or “experiences.”

You go for the jugular.

You talk about the car, its features, its benefits, and why it’s better than the market leader.

That’s the way you save a business.

That’s the way you sell a car.