By Robert Emslie
Making your own thunder is perhaps not the best tag line for an auto advertisement. That is, unless the ad is touting a car’s power windows and flow-through ventilation. Still, that was what Ford thought would drive people to consider the massive mid-seventies Thunderbird. This was the same company that thought “Road-Hugging Weight” would be a good incentive for moving an economy car, and featured that tag on ads for the parsimonious Pinto Pony.
They say that hindsight is 20/20, and of course it’s easy to look back and armchair quarterback the decisions of car companies and their ad agency partners. That being said, there have been a ton of advertising tag lines that upon reflection, may not have been well thought out before releasing on the car buying public. Those are the ones we want today.
Do you remember Buick’s “Dream Up” campaign set to the tune of Aerosmith’s Dream On? Man, did that stink the place up. Fortunately, someone at the maker caught whiff of the ads and put a stop to it before Buick went the way of Pontiac. That’s the kind of stuff we want today. What do you think has been the dumbest-ever automaker advertising line?
Image source: ClassicCarsTodayOnline
Jeff Glucker
Toyotathon.
I beg your pardon?
<img src="http://thatslikewhoa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sexist-ads7.jpg"width="500"/>
WHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
Funny as hell, but not the way Pontiac advertised it.
<img src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FA-AN9mfIZI/TLibJdJ9WeI/AAAAAAAAADs/MDub-RiYkqs/s1600/1957+Pontiac+Star+Chief+ads.jpg" width=500>
…also introducing the new subcompact, Handker-chief.
Party pooper.
No, that's a different car…
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/F4f2qRy.jpg" width="500">
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/rolls-royce-vignale-special-first-car-with-toilet” target=”_blank”>http://www.examiner.com/article/rolls-royce-vignale-special-first-car-with-toilet
Well, for crap's sake.
/Hi, Flick!
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/IobqEfM.gif" width="300">
Champagne bucket fellas, champagne bucket
Honda. We make it simple.
Unless you realize "simple" is a bad trait for the second biggest purchase of your life, then we'll say it isn't so simple.
<img src="http://img.auctiva.com/imgdata/0/6/7/5/1/2/webimg/261903098_o.jpg" width="500">
Simple enough?
I really need to scan in the late 1970s parody ad I have for Honda. The line was "Honka. We make it shrimpy." It shows a CVCC like car with only one axle in the middle, balanced on two wheels.
Yes. Yes you do. You've been saying that for too long.
/wink
http://hooniverse.info/2011/07/14/hooniverse-asks-…
I'm pretty sure that this guy approves of this particular edition of the Thunder Bird:
<img src="http://www.big13.net/Achorman%20photos/Burgandy.jpeg" width="600">
So no car for the most of us then!
<img src="http://ritakeller.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/0ebae_mercedes-benz-the-best-or-nothing1.jpg">
"You poors can walk!"
I suppose the rest of us must wait until our betters are finished with their Benzes, then we can purchase them on the used market — cannot forget our place in life, can we?
Here in Pittsburgh if I hear The Clarks Toyota commercial one more time I am going to hurl. Absolute saturation on all channels it seems. http://youtu.be/HWFtCpfuSEI
gah!
While Toyota didn't say this directly, the couple who claimed their Camry was "grounded to the ground" in recent Camry ads because it had ground effects made me do a total facepalm.
<img src="https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/532113_527465003930770_1378602078_n.jpg">
Apparently I'm not the only one, as it has spawned a meme.
<img src="http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/34374190.jpg">
That ad made me want to throw a temper tantrum on the floor. Make the girl say things that guys would like and make the guy say things that girls would like = now the girl is cool and guy is sensitive, ohh…
Grounded to the ground wasn't the dumbest line in the ad, it was the "It's got features that guys like, like the sleek lines and wheels". You know.. wheels have been a feature that has received nearly universal praise since the invention of the automobile. In fact, I've made sure ALL of my cars have had those!
Yeah, the grounded quote was just the tip of the iceberg, but it was the one that ruffled the most feathers with car enthusiasts.
Not your Father's Oldsmobile? What if your father's Oldsmobile was this;
<img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-03COsJxpW8A/UIO4HlnmbOI/AAAAAAAB3Zo/FkJyzzmbAe8/s640/1950+Oldsmobile+Rocket+88+Adverts+(9).jpg" height="500" img="">
Or this;
<img src="http://nkazmers.tripod.com/442frontside1.jpg" width=500 /img>
Or even this?
<img src="http://carphotos.cardomain.com/ride_images/3/2823/222/32055110872_large.jpg" width="500" img="">
To be fair, I don't suppose they could really use "Yeah, we all kind of screwed up the Malaise Era."
i never really understood "Image Hosted by Tripod" either
what were they trying to get at? exclusivity? an "emperor's new clothes" sort of thing?
Huh, showed up fine on my initial posting (because the image was already in my cache?). Welp, it was supposed to be a '66 or so 442.
And come to think of it, one Ash Williams was using an Olds to fight off the undead and primitive screwheads around that time. And Chuck D was rolling in his Ninety-Eight. There's a point there somewhere, their fathers' Olds'?
thumbs-up for Public Enemy reference
<img src="http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/11637227/Public+Enemy+++Fight+The+Power.jpg">
Indeed. My father's present-day Oldsmobile is this:
<img src="http://oi30.tinypic.com/4lof9v.jpg" width="500"/>
…because he had one much like this in his early 20's, years before I was born.
<img src="http://oi43.tinypic.com/2vvu8o8.jpg" width="500"/>
If he gave up the 442 for you, it probably was a bad decision.
<img src="http://nozama.typepad.com/.a/6a00e54ed05fc288330133f32f1ffc970b-400wi" width="400">
Ducks named Ziggy? The Caddy that Zigs?
[youtube f06pr7ziMFg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f06pr7ziMFg youtube]
Ford also referred to the Monarch and Granada as "Precision Sized".
"Put Mercury on your List" could have as easily been written "No one would ordinarily consider our cars, so even though we know you probably won't buy one in the end…we're begging you, at least give us a shot."
<img src="http://blog.cargurus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wagner_jill222.jpg">
It kind of worked… I put Jill Wagner on my list.
Yeah buddy! And, she's coming back to Wipeout, after being MIA for the last season or two.. I saw her on a recent commercial for Summer Wipeout.
She's been back for a couple episodes already actually.
Of course, Ford's used both "Have you driven a Ford, Lately?" And Ford – Try One (or something to that effect). They're not a company that shies from borderline desperation.
yeah, but they still didn't drink the kool-aide… drove a ford yesterday…it was interesting…drove buick on Friday…it was boring.
The "Suzuki Introduces America" series was just plain stupid.
Let's make an awkward point of our import status (at a time when "Jap crap" was still a popular term) while insinuating that we know more about a foreign nation than the people who live there.
<img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8034/8068672860_49f2ca20e0.jpg" width="400">
<img src="http://www.tias.com/stores/mspackratz/pictures/r4263a.jpg" width="300">
"Make a little thunder of your own"?! That's a better slogan for Taco Bell.
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/vdbe7Xl.jpg" width="550">
Seriously, if you need convincing of this fact, the problem lies with your product; not your advertising.
Inexpensive, and built to stay that way. So, built cheaply then.
<img src="http://a15ff11300g.sakura.ne.jp/catalogue/oversea/1979%20SUBARU.inexpensive.and%20built%20to%20stay%20that%20way.(2)/large/1979%20SUBARU.inexpensive.and%20built%20to%20stay%20that%20way.(2).01.jpg" width="500">
It is an easily-misunderstood ad. They're trying to say "It doesn't cost much, and maintenance won't cost much, either." but it's easily misinterpreted as "It's cheap junk and always will be."
When they first came to America they were even less subtle
[youtube zLPp-NFInXw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLPp-NFInXw youtube]
"The Little Su-BAH-Ru"? Wow! The hot chicks? Even wower!
I actually knew someone that owned one, back in high school.
Sorta lost in translation from French to 'Merican… <img src="http://i.ebayimg.com/t/1969-69-Mehari-Citroen-ORIGINAL-Ad-CMY-STORE-4-MORE-GREAT-ADS-5-FREE-SHIP-/03/!Bc2p8c!Bmk~$(KGrHqYH-CIEq3!t422KBK2U0IpTWQ~~_35.JPG">
Given that Citroen never really made any inroads in the American market, that's probably accurate actually.
At least they got the saying right. This is one of my biggest verbal pet peeves.
<img src="http://forum.spiritcompany.com/smilies/caring.jpg">
It's annoying, but I could care less.
DOWNVOTE!
Now you're just being careless.
At least he's not carless.
It's not a car, it's a Volkswagen. Doesn't Volkswagen literally mean People's Car? So the ad is contradicting itself right there! Plus, if you look at the picture, it's clearly a car, they don't get much more car-like than that car right there.
<img src="http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/tapdv6ox6vuxnk.jpg">
"0-50 in 6.8 seconds" is kind of a misleading number. 0-60 (or the 0-62 number after conversions) is repeated over and over as it allows you to compare apples-to-apples between vehicles.
That's like stating the 14-58 time is 9.34 seconds. Is that good? Bad? Indifferent?
See, back then the 55mph speed limit was still in effect and you can't advertise your car being able to go things that are illegal!
0-50 times was pretty common in car ads in the early 1980s.
"Chevy Runs Deep"
I rest my case.
I always thought the Volt needed its own version of that: "Runs Silent, Runs Deep".
I always feel like I have t take a shower when I hear that line. *shudders
THANK you. I still don't know what that means.
but what does it mean???? bit deep for me
*Ahem*….
Toyota: Always moving forward
Awkward timing, yes?
My upvotes, you may have them all.
I am convinced that Richard Widmark truly believed it when he stated that "the quality goes in before the GM name goes on" . What a great actor. I gagged when I saw the commercial. Ahhhh, the memories it brings back….
'Subaru – Can I kick the tiiiiires?'
<img src="http://i.imgur.com/mBRoNK7.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" />
I was curious if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your blog?
Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
But maybe you could a little more in the way of content
so people could connect with it better. Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two pictures.
Maybe you could space it out better?