Car commercials can be boring as hell but some still worth the time. Check especially the commercials from exotic car makers such as Lamborghini, Ferrari and Porsche
Over in Brazil, Nissan found itself in hot water after one of their commercials directed at Ford drew the ire of the American automaker’s Brazilian arm.
The music-video style parody commercial that Nissan released features two men representing Ford engineers, dressed to the absolute nines decked with gold chains, rings, and fur coats, while sipping champagne and flocked by a multitude of scantily-clad women. Oh, and if you didn’t notice, there’s also a Ford Focus in the background. Yep, a Ford Focus in a Nissan commercial.
While the TV spot isn’t in English, the lyrics, when translated to Portuguese, translate to something like "All the luxury that I got, I got it with your money" and "Don’t weep because you’re paying extra money — your money was well spent, look what I do with it."
Obviously, the whole commercial didn’t sit too well with Ford, who thought that Nissan was sending a message to consumers that the Focus is overpriced in Brazil compared to the Japanese automaker’s Tiida sub-compact (it’s called the Versa in our neck of the woods). While there’s some truth to it - the Tiida is actually cheaper by a little under $2,000 in Brazil compared to the Focus - Ford didn’t like the way Nissan portrayed their company.
Ford’s lawsuit prompted Nissan to pull the television commercial, but apparently, not before the video found its way on the Internet. With the web being a lot more expansive and lenient than any form of medium these days, Ford’s going to have a hard time curtailing the showing of this Nissan ad.
We all know that Kobe Bryant takes helicopter rides to go to his home games and jumps over Aston Martins like nobody’s business. What we didn’t know is that he could also fight crime, armed only with a basketball and...a Smart car.
In a market that’s as huge and as basketball crazed as China, Smart played it perfectly by tapping into one of the most popular basketball players in the world to be the brand’s resident ambassador and crime-fighter.
The new ad aims to educate Smart owners and more importantly, would-be owners on the merits of driving a car as small, agile, and city-ready as the ForTwo. Heck, if a 6’6" basketball player with spider-like legs can take down a fleeing art criminal, who says that you wouldn’t be able to do it too.
Check out the video of the Black Mamba and the Smar ForTwo in crime-fighting action.
Porsche has found a pretty interesting way to promote their vehicles; releasing a series of commercials that illustrate how their vehicles can be used for everyday activities. The series consists of the "Snowmobile," "Pickup Truck," "Getaway Car," "School Bus," and "Pet Carrier." Yeah, Porsche thinks their cars can manage all of those tasks.
“It’s not only about the weekend joyride. It’s the only car in the world that combines true sports car exhilaration and the drivability for daily use. This campaign brings this fact to life, painting a bigger picture of the real Porsche value proposition, in some cases through the words and images of owners themselves,” says David Pryor, vice president of marketing for Porsche Cars North America.
Of course, whether we agree or not, Porsche has certainly come up with an ingenious way of promoting their 911, Cayman, and Boxster models, although we just don’t them actually utilizing their personal Porsches for any of these tasks.
For as long as we can remember, Ferrari and Lamborghini have taken attempts on one-upping one another. Whether it’s through the release of a new car or a marketing and publicity effort, the two Italian brands take great pride in pulling the wool over each other’s eyes.
Apparently, their rivalry has even taken to the form of behind-the-scenes videos. A few days after such a video was shown of the new Lamborghini Aventador commercial, the Prancing Horse went out and released their own behind-the-scenes video of a commercial they’re preparing for the Ferrari FF.
Coincidence? Maybe. But anytime we can stoke the fires of this passionate Italian rivalry, that in itself is worth doing.
Unlike the Aventador commercial, which seems to have been shot on one location in the Californian dessert, the ad for the new Ferrari FF seems to have been shot in various parts of Europe. Now, we can’t be too sure as to the exact locations, but we do know that the Ferrari FF commercial wasn’t shot in one studio, let alone one location.
Either way, it’s always fun to see these two brands compete for the front pages. At the very least, they both make ours so you can pretty much call this one a wash.
Now let’s see which brand releases their commercial first.
You might have wondered exactly why the latest Transformers trailer was aired during the Daytona 500. Well, apart from the NASCAR race being one of the most watched sporting events in the US, the new trailer was aptly aired during the race because of a partnership between the movie and the racing series.
If you had no idea before, then let this new trailer be your introduction to three new robots that will be featured in the third installment of the blockbuster movie franchise: they’re Chevrolet Impalas dressed up as NASCAR race cars that also happen to be Transformers.
Until now, no names or affiliations – word has it that they’re one of the good guys – have been given for these three racing robots, but whatever their allegiances are, it’s still pretty cool to see some US-bred NASCAR racers in the movie.
The movie hits theaters on July 1st, 2011, making it another four-month wait for ardent fans of the franchise. And if you’re fans of NASCAR like we are, there’s another reason – or three – to anxiously wait for the movie’s release. Until then, check out the new Transformers trailer and keep a sharp eye out for those bad-ass NASCAR Transformers.
Now that Super Bowl XLV has come and gone and the Green Bay Packers are bringing the Lombardi Trophy back home to Titletown, it’s now time to sit back and reflect on all the happenings of the day.
Seeing as we’re a car site, we’re going to leave the sports analysis of the Packers’ 31-25 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers to other sites. Instead, we’re going to focus on something that hits close to home to us: cars.
In particular, all the car commercials that we saw before, during, and after the Super Bowl. We don’t have the time to run through all the car ads that we saw, in part because some of them weren’t very good. Despite that, there were still some ads that struck a nerve in us. Whether it’s a funny commercial involving a pint-size version of a famous sci-fi villain or a serious message about a fallen city looking to rise back to prominence, we’ve picked out the 5 best car commercials from Super Bowl XLV.
If you watched the game and caught a hold of all the ads, feel free to chime in with your own Top 5. But if you want to check out which ones we thought deserved mentioning, head over after the jump to see our list.
Unlike a lot of automakers that have already shown their commercials for the Super Bowl, Audi is taking a slightly different approach on how their building up interest for their two 60-second ads that’s going to be shown during the game.
The German manufacturer has yet to release their two commercials, instead opting for a more conservative and more interesting approach in the form of two teaser videos.
Centered around the "Luxury Prison" campaign as an ode to the company’s approach in progressive luxury, the two teaser videos gives us a good look at life inside the Luxury Prison.
In the first teaser video, some of the incarcerated ’felons’ of the prison talk to a group of young thrust-fund babies on the perils of their high-brow lifestyles with the hope of educating these spoiled brats from avoiding serving time at the prison.
The second video features world famous saxophonist Kenny G playing the role of the prison’s official "Riot Suppressor", a title he received for having the all-important role of de-escalating riots before they blow up into a full-on caviar throwfest.
These two videos serve as teasers for Audi’s two 60-second commercials that will be shown at the Super Bowl. One thing that’s worth noting about these two ads is that the Audi A8 luxury sedan will play prominent roles in both advertisements.
We don’t know what kind of role capacity the A8 will have for the two commercials, but as Audi hopes, we’re dying to find out. In the meantime, check out these two teaser videos of the ’Luxury Prison’ after the jump.
There’s a certain sense of artistic symbolism to this commercial that makes it one of our favorite ads that is set to be shown at the Super Bowl later today.
Created by Volkswagen for this special day, the commercial takes us into the life of a wandering beetle in the forest that’s seemingly determined to race past all of the other insects like his life depended on it. It sort of reminds us of that movie ’A Bug’s Life’ except that instead of Flik the Ant, we’re treated to a beetle that always seems to be in a hurry, even demonstrating a few drift maneuvers while racing past other insects in the jungle.
If you’re not the type to get queasy in seeing the mugs of bugs up close, then you’ll definitely enjoy this commercial. Obviously, there’s only one car in Volkswagen’s line-up that can be associated with this ad and we don’t need to remind you what it is.
All you need to do is look at the main character of the commercial and it’s physical characteristics and it becomes as obvious as the name associated with it.
And if you still haven’t figured out that this commercial is for the 2012 Beetle, then the sick ending of the insect fading into the silhouette of the new Beetle is as mind-numbingly obvious as it can get.
We normally don’t subscribe to these types of marketing campaigns because they’re plainly of the annoying variety, but Hyundai did a pretty darn good job at executing it that we actually liked the whole theme of hypnosis.
Playing the age old visual mind trick, Hyundai worked on the idea that the Elantra is more than just a compact car and tells consumers that they need to rid themselves of their preconceived notions of what a compact car really is.
The whole idea of "snapping out of it" plays exactly into Hyundai’s hands. For the most part, at least as far as the Korean manufacturer is concerned, the Elantra is a car that’s far from boring and actually has better mileage - 40 mpg, according to Hyundai - than most people think.
Even if it means resulting into playing the whole hypnosis mind trick routine, Hyundai is all for it so as long as people begin to realize that the Elantra is a lot better car than most people give it credit for.
As the ad vehemently declares, it’s going to be a mass-deprogramming of an unprecedented scale when the commercials hit the tubes.
Just how far would you go to drive the Kia Optima?
To give an idea just how criminally desirable Kia’s new mid-size sedan is, the Korean automaker’s new Super Bowl commercial features the car getting jacked multiple times by the most unlikely of people. Or in one case, the Greek God of the Sea.
From a policeman, to a terrorist, to Poseidon, to aliens, and finally the Mayan empire, the Kia Optima exchanges hands more times than a day spent in East L.A.
Apparently, everybody loves the Optima so much that they’d resort to underhanded tactics to have a chance to get behind the wheel of it. In the end, the Optima ends up in the hands of the Mayan empire, which would have been cool except that we seriously doubt if those people knew how to drive it.
