Friday, March 15, 2013

Ford needs a better ad man

It's a maximally ineffective TV car ad.  It starts off with an animated cartoon of a SUV.  As the voice over explains that the SUV is too small to hold all the passengers.  The cartoon car shows bulges all of a sudden.  Then they melt down the cartoon car and redraw it. A happy voice over now explains how everyone fits inside, now.    That uses up half the ad time.
  Then we finally get to see a photo of the car they are trying to sell.  It bursts thru a big sheet of wallpaper.  The car is not on screen long enough to really see it.  It's painted mud color.  It has an odd name "C-Max" which is never spelled out on screen.   It has three grownups squeezed into the back seat looking squashed which kinda negates the point the cartoons tried to make.  Price is not given. 
   That ad ain't gonna sell cars.
   To sell a car on TV  you want to show the car,.early and all the way thru.  You want to show the car name prominently and early, 'cause cars all look alike these days.  Give the car a real pronounceable name rather than random strings of letters and numbers.Show people doing fun things in the car at interesting places.  For instance parked at a beach with surfboards on the roof.  Or with skis on the roof at a ski resort.  Or towing a boat trailer to a fishing spot. Or beside a tent at a scenic campground.  And paint the car a real color, not mud.



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