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:
"We aren't selling a car, we're selling a lifestyle."
Everyone in marketing has heard this phrase spoken, without a trace of irony, at least once.
Their literally selling an identity for those that need one.
To the credulous idiots that buy such things, yes, they are buying a lifestyle.
The most dystopian ones for me are the ones that are just for a company, not for any specific product. You see that sometimes for companies like Raytheon that don't sell stuff to the general public but still need PR so people don't automatically associate them with drone strikes and shit.
Oil giants making ads about how environmentally friendly they is beyond disgusting, it is straight up a taunt to the people. Those motherfuckers know exactly what they're doing to the planet, the literally the first institution to receive researches on climate collapse years before it became public knowledge. An ad where they just show their executives living in opulence while calling us stupid powerless proles would be less insulting in my opinion.
There's another factor to those ads. The new oil and gas sector talking point is "we need a certain amount of oil, would you rather us buy it from our GREEN, AMERICAN refineries or from DIRTY, OPPRESSIVE countries like Saudi Arabia/Venezuela/Iran/Russia/etcetc".
Amazon does that now. It's creepy.
It isn't new, though. The 90s had a lot of "the internet will break down all the barriers and humans will be interconnected in a human network of information superhighway web surfing humans that will be better humans tomorrow for better humans. Humans." All to laughing children sounds. :cringe:
I love trains, but I remember the Warren buffet owned BNSF sponsoring the news program on PBS.
Why? nobody gets to decide which tracks their freight travels on, even if they're a decision-maker at a large freight company.
I once spent a week driving a BMW M5. After opening it up like once right away, I just used it like my normal car, (a Mazda hatchback). Both cars were about the same and honestly the driving experience was basically the same. Except the M5 costs many tens of thousands more. Ultimately, driving on American roads is all the same regardless of the vehicle you drive. So in order to get you to pay more, they have to convince you that if spend more you'll get a different experience when you drive to Walgreens to get some iced tea.
One time I was in a bus on the highway that passed a Lamborghini because of traffic.
Therefore busses both hold more people and are quicker than luxury sportscars in actual use.
I have no idea why anyone would want to drive a Lamborghini anywhere other than a track. Driving a fast car slowly in traffic sounds like the most boring shit ever.
I bet the bus is way more comfortable too (of course :train-shining: still reigns supreme)
Especially in a place with winters so potholes exist year round no matter what, and you can't use the car for 4-5 months a year.
Love playing "dodge the pothole" while going like 40 km/h max in stop/start traffic. Such luxury.
"WOW LOOK AT LOKI DRIVING THIS NEW 2022 HYUNDAI SUV!!! "
The logical conclusion of WB's smash knock-off
You WILL watch Harry Potter hexing Scooby Doo and driving off in a Tesla. And you WILL like it. And Harry WILL unexpectedly KO himself in an inferno of molten lithium 2 seconds later (non-magic related, nobody knows why it happened)
(non-magic related, nobody knows why it happened)
That will train the AI and make it even safer than ever before! :so-true:
Note how there is never any traffic in those commercials, even in major cities. Also note how the characters never have to look for parking.
I love the commercial were dude cleans beach with Kia? Then watches turtles lay eggs or some shit. Such trash
The world of those commercials could only exist in a mass-transit utopia where driving is always inferior to public transit, and owning a car is a result of deliberate lifestyle choices and hobbies rather than not having any other good methods of transport and self-expression.
There’s some irony in that a society built around cars gives you the worst experience of every aspect of cars.
Buying them is worse because they’re almost all soulless and interchangeable, and still overpriced.
Maintaining them is worse because maintenance is designed around everyone taking their car to a dealership and not user-maintenance or even local mechanics.
Driving is worse because everyone else has to drive too
Even the car infrastructure is worse because everything has to be transported via semi-trucks that account for 90% of road wear and every 200 feet they need another stoplight to handle the fact that everyone else is driving.
I've noticed how many vacation sites and picturesque vistas and places that people want to pay money to visit have working mass transit and lots of walkable spaces. But carbrain refuses to make the connection.
I heard somewhere that car commercials are targeted mostly towards people who recently bought a car, to help them justify their purchase
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.
Car commercials are the fucking worst. My least favourite are the grinding and mud splashing small penis machines (big trucks and SUVs).
I read an interesting article once that talked about how cars are a luxury product that are only desirable if no one else has any. With loads of cars you can no longer travel faster than others or even particularly fast
edit: found it https://unevenearth.org/2018/08/the-social-ideology-of-the-motorcar/
It's a big lie that's sold for a century. "FREEDOM!... to be stuck in traffic with the other FREEDOM! buyers."
Car companies absolutely love conflating the actually-enjoyable experience of driving through a scenic, winding country road with no traffic with the shit we all do 95% of the time, which is sit in the same god damn traffic every single day to and from work.
It's a lie, it's always been a lie, yet we're coerced by lingering :grillman: :brainworms: to continue commuting in the freedom boxes even if it never made sense.
The thing is the vast majority of drivers find anything other than a straight lane terrifying
Relatedly I enjoy how the model years keep coming faster and faster. I swear I saw an ad last month for a 2023 model. They'll be years ahead soon at this pace.
In 2024: "the all new 2028 Kia"
I didn't even notice that. That's like how Christmas is pushed as far back as the end of summer. :agony-minion:
it's legal to have the model year start in the first quarter of the prior calendar year. so like 2023 models are already being sold and have been advertised since last year.
radio car ads: :alex-supplements:
tv car ads: :amerikkka-clap: :trade-offer: :free-real-estate: :freedom-and-democracy: :libertarian-alert: :not-a-journalist:
a freauent radio dealership commecial where i am is various skits between an overworked employee who does all the work and an eternally ungrateful stereotypical italian boss who is always on vacation or doing fuck all.
