THE AUTOEXTREMIST

February 8, 2012

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. And there was a football game goin’ on somewhere in there too.

By Peter M. De Lorenzo

(Posted 2/6, 7:00 p.m.) Detroit. Well, well, well, that was special. America’s biggest undeclared holiday came off without a hitch and even Madonna was only semi-embarrassing, which was a minor miracle. But forget all of that, and forget about New England’s heretofore sure-handed receivers dropping passes like they were buttered on the last two drives. What about the commercials? And better yet, what about the car commercials?

After all this has become the automotive marketer’s Holy Grail, the “mine’s bigger – and better – than yours” love fest, a “look at us, look how smart we are!” orchestrated image-wrangling exercise about who these car companies think they are, as opposed to the reality of who they are. (It’s actually a fun exercise to watch the commercials and determine which manufacturers have lost all perspective. More on that later.)

But before I get into that, as for the overall quality of the general ads themselves I have to say the effort was decidedly mediocre, and as an ex-ad man I’m afraid what’s passing for “great” creative these days leaves a lot to be desired. A lot. I’m getting more than a little concerned that the dumbing down of America is continuing, and that what people perceive as being “awesome” commercials wouldn’t have passed muster even five years ago. But that’s another column. What about the car ads?

Audi. As I said last week, the Audi “Vampire” spot touting its LED headlights was just flat-out tedious and not in keeping with the level of previous creative efforts by the German brand. The commercial in question doesn’t hold a candle to the “Ahab” spot (with the tow truck driver) and that’s a shame, because that’s the spot Audi should have run on the game. A big-time flub for Audi.

Acura. The spot featuring Jerry Seinfeld with a cameo by Jay Leno barely held up in its Big Game debut. Though it featured a car that won’t see the light of day until 2015 at the earliest, I’m sure it made Acura operatives (and their dealers) very happy and I hope so because they spent a ton of money on it. But my question is this: Will the spot help sell anything Acura has in its showrooms right now? I’ll answer that one for you. How about no?

GM. Reiterating what I said last week, to run the Cadillac spot for the ATS on the Super Bowl was a monumental waste of money. Though I personally love the subject matter (excellent footage of the ATS proving its mettle on the fabulous Nurburgring Nordschleife) it was totally lost on the viewing audience and thus eminently forgettable. What about that whole “know your audience” advertising adage again? GM marketing clearly just ignored the audience altogether on this one. A bad call. The Chevrolet “Stunt Anthem” for the Sonic was only mildly interesting – the “Bug” spot for the Sonic was much more entertaining – and the Camaro “Happy Grad” spot was still the best thing Chevrolet ran on the game.

As for the “2012" ad for the Silverado, I’m sure everyone at Chevy is still high-fiving the living daylights with each other over that spot. They tweaked Ford and it was all-good fun from where they sit and it garnered plenty of laughs and I’m sure the dealers absolutely loved it too. But a couple of things. 1. I intensely dislike when ad agencies rip-off movies. It’s “borrowed interest” in its most egregious form and in this case the whole Twinkie bit at the end of the spot was a direct rip from the movie “Zombieland” and it’s just unfortunate. It stinks, in fact. Memo to the Goodby creatives: That’s all you got? Ugh. And call me crazy but if I’m a CMO and I’m spending $2.5-$3 million or thereabouts on a Super Bowl spot (depending on the multiple-spot discount in play) the last thing I’m going to do is mention the competition. GM did it in the ATS spot with BMW and they did it again in the Silverado spot when they pissed on Ford. Do GM marketing operatives feel better now? I hope so, but do you want to know what the net-net of all of this means in the Big Picture of things? Not. So. Much.

Honda. In hindsight the Ferris Bueller-themed spot for the CR-V with Matthew Broderick was a painful reminder that what was and still is a great movie should have been left right where we can usually find it: in DVD replays or late-night movie channel viewing. The last thing Ferris Bueller would be caught dead in – even an all-grown-up Ferris Bueller – is a Honda CR-V. And any of the fun found in the long-form media plays that ran before the game came completely unglued with the severely truncated version that ran on the game itself. Chalk it up to one of those creative daydreams that got lost in translation.

Hyundai-Kia. I’m not going to bother covering all of the spots from the Korean auto conglomerate here because the only one worth mentioning was the “Dream Car. For Real Life.” spot for the Kia Optima. Clever, funny and on point, it was worth the effort. The rest of the stuff? Not worth mentioning. At all.

Toyota/Lexus. I thought the “Reinvented” spot for the Camry was a good effort, surprisingly so, in fact. If nothing else it at least had a sense of humor, even though the car is still remarkably bland-tastic. “The Beast” spot for the Lexus GS was beyond loathsome, however, and it was everything a bad car spot on the Super Bowl usually is: Uninteresting. Irrelevant. And relentlessly boring. Nicely done, ladies and gentlemen, it well and truly sucked.

VW. The “Dog Strikes Back” could have been perfect. Cue the cute overweight dog losing weight in order to chase the new Beetle. Check. Add in some classic funky music from James Brown. Check. And voila! Great spot, right? Wrong. What was the whole point of the Darth Vader bit at the end? To make us all remember how good last year’s spot was? Why? Who cares? That was last year. The end was totally nonsensical and completely uncalled for. Oh well, just watch the spot to the point where the slimmed-down dog is chasing the Beetle and press “stop play.” And call it good.

And last but not least, it’s about the Chrysler spot. I’ve got to hand it to Olivier “I’m a genius, just ask me” Francois, Sergio Marchionne’s personal marketing bag man, because he carefully set the table with his “It's Halftime in America” spot with Clint Eastwood so that anyone who deigned to dig a little deeper and bring up some salient negative points about it would be labeled as being un-American and just shy of being a traitor.

So be it.

Here’s the thing folks: Anyone out there taking this spot on face value and getting all teary-eyed about its content and its alleged message is either 1. A Chrysler dealer with an IV drip of Sergio Marchionne Kool-Aid attached, or 2. Someone used to doing a drive-by when it comes to the serious issues of the day and plainly unwilling to devote the time necessary to dig a little deeper into the whys, wherefores and facts of the matter.

First of all, I’ve said this before but it needs to be said again because people clearly are suspending all rational thought when it comes to evaluating Chrysler, but just how arrogant – and blatantly cynical – are Francois and Marchionne to think that they not only have permission to lecture America about what it means to be good Americans, but that it’s somehow their right.

Really? They get all that from being a Italian car company that was gifted – let’s not sugarcoat this, folks, gifted – a piece of the industrial fabric of this country on the backs of the U.S taxpayer because our government leaders had nowhere else to turn and Sergio had his hand out the farthest? Please.

And holding up Detroit – yet again – as some beacon of America’s rejuvenation when the reality of the matter is that the city is just a half-step from being totally flat broke (by April 1^st according to all reliable sources) and our Michigan governor is just moments away from being forced to appoint an executive manager to run the city because it’s about to land in default?

Beacon of rejuvenation? Hardly. It’s more like a city in desperate need of resuscitation. But in Francois’s world these are just annoying details to be swept under a fictitious rug of “America” as writ large on the Super Bowl, complete with an aging Hollywood icon at the controls telling us that things are alright – as if we were all just in a momentary bad patch – so that the nanosecond attention span generation can sit up and understand that, wait a minute, this must be Important and thus Awesome!

And this is a comeback? Well, it may make sense to the Donny Deutsch’s of the world and the other two-bit pundits and head-in-sand dwellers who have stamped their 15 seconds of judgment as to the efficacy of the Chrysler Super Bowl spot, but to anyone else who lives and breathes in these environs it’s out and out fiction.

But then again I could see how the view from Auburn Hills might be a bit skewed, after all, the bankruptcy wiped out most if not all of Chrysler’s pressing debt and remaining legacy costs while the Italians have been able to ride on the backs of the hard-core True Believers who forged ahead with product plans that were in place long before Sergio & Co. arrived, which is directly responsible for the company’s current success.

I guess when you look at it strictly within that purview it might be easy to lose your mind and command your ad agency to come up with a grandiose and perfectly pretentious spot for the Big Game, one that lectures Americans on what’s really important and telling us all if we roll up our sleeves, work hard and keep our heads down – like the good people at Chrysler and the city of Detroit – it’s all going to be okay.

Well I’m not buying it in the least and I’m sad that Clint Eastwood got sucked into the swirling maelstrom of hubris that fuels the Marchionne/Francois Arrogance Train. These guys are so self-absorbed and self-important right now that they’ve lost all shred of reality. How else could they have gotten to the point that they now truly believe it’s perfectly fine to define America for Americans?

Chrysler’s “Eminem” spot last year was unexpected and uplifting and it deserved the accolades, even though it was regurgitated and beaten to death the rest of the year. But with their heads swelled and their wallets ballooning, this year Francois and Marchionne went way too far. Off the deep end, in fact. And unfortunately too many people “out there” bought it hook, line and sinker, apparently.

In the end what does this spot say about Chrysler, exactly? That it’s a car company single-handedly responsible for the rebuilding of America? Oh wait a minute, was that before or after the taxpayer bailout? I’m a bit confused. Or that if Detroit can dust itself off and come back, then the rest of America can too? Is that after they appoint the executive manager to steer the city back from being Flat Broke and Busted U.S.A.? I just want a clarification.

Providing counterpoint to the canonization of Chrysler isn’t going to be popular today because the gushing praise is running like rivers out of every media source you can name, but then again, I couldn’t care less.

People need to take a deep breath, take a step back from the gooey schmaltz as propagated by Messrs Francois and Marchionne in their cynically calculated “It's Halftime in America” lecture-masquerading-as-a Super Bowl-commercial and understand what we’re really talking about here.

And that is that in its simplest state this is an Italian-owned car company blatantly trying to guilt America into buying more of its cars and trucks, and willing to do it by using any means necessary. Even if they have to drag Clint Eastwood into the mix in order to pull it off.

A sad commentary unto itself, but the bare-knuckled reality nonetheless.

And that’s the High-Octane Truth for this week.

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