Other commercials suck, too. And yes, I know there's ways around most of those commercials, but for those of us that have to stand in line at banks, have no say in what the gym has on its screens everywhere, have to sit in dentist or doctor offices well past the appointment time, or maybe just want to watch a show that isn't available anywhere else (yo ho ho pending).
With that aside, really sucks having to sit through car commercials in particular. They're extraordinarily pretentious. Relatively speaking, I actually miss the 80s-90s loud car salesman antics on TV about how many horses are under the hood and how much cash back if you jump through some hoops. Now, it's some pretentious speech about what kind of consumer drives the car, about how dynamic and free thinking and primordially in tune and rugged and sophisticated and otherwise amazing they are.
And it's always some long stretch of empty road. I sometimes wonder if some of road rage mentality is partially a subconscious response to other cars existing on the road, a sort of "this is supposed to be my life changing epiphany! My epic adventure! Get off my road of dreams!" :frothingfash: thing.
Most commercials are anxiety-inducing, grating, obnoxious, but car commercials are the worst of them all.
Deliver us, o train, for we are in need. :train-shining:
That's intriguing and strange. The goal isn't to sell the vehicle as much as to soothe possible buyer's remorse?
Car commercials are also playing a long game of occupying the mental space people have for what a "good car brand" is. There's a reason people in the US think about Buick, Honda, Toyota, and Ford more than they think about, say, Mazda or Suzuki. Mazda makes damn fine consumer vehicles, but they're a smaller company without the advertising budget of an industry titan, so even if their cars are basically on-par with any given Honda or Toyota sedan, and the Miata is a deeply beloved car model for enthusiasts, average consumers don't give them as much headspace.
As a related thing, the best built and best designed motorcycles in the world are not Harley-Davidson noise machines, but you wouldn't know it if you just watched the roads and what thumb-heads ride.
Yeah I have no idea if that's true, it's just something I heard once.
I think the larger point is that car commercials are a long game to make consumers associate brands with positive attributes, since most people won't go out right away and impulse buy a Camaro after seeing an ad (unless maybe they're a new Army recruit).
I do see the evidence on the road whenever I'm forced to be there: people do behave like the product's marketing message. Lifted truck of "Murican" brand usually means aggressive thumb-headed douchebag, for example.