Broken promises...

Crossing the pond for this week's instalment of what has now become a car advertising blog. The following ads were produced by David and Goliath, a creative agency which opened shop in the US with offices in LA but now have secondary bases in London and Frankfurt. Both of these ads are for the dubiously named KIA Optima; one of them works well within the confines of its own nature and the other droops off into not much. See if you can guess which is which.

The tagline 'One Epic Ride' is apt; the action shows the car in a light which does exactly what it says on the tin. But with such a large budget to play with I imagine it's all to easy to go for the big flashy execution rather than teasing out a more conceptually creative ad, and after all this is an American ad. But, and I say 'but' again, it's nice to see agencies run away with themselves capturing a spirit of giddy, simplistic excitement which is what's most important when you're trying to hook the potentially car-buying-family-life's-pecking-my-head,-I-wish-I'd-carried-on-surfing-male. Plus the wheels are cool.

This one was also given 5 stars by y'all YouTubers in the US. Well it's beautifully cinematographic, any suggestions for a shorter word welcome, in a similar way to the first its fantastical story aims to capture the imagination and I think it does it in a more emotive way by using the boy. Details I love: the Narnia style wardrobe right at the start, the Space 1999 style rocket ship at 0:15 and the kids model town at 0:19. Particularly I like the fact that certain fragments of the lad's dream are present in the bedroom reality; nice attention to detail showing reality inspires dreams, which is the central theme highlighted by the end VO.

And it's exactly the summarising VO which irks me most about this ad: 'No one ever dreamt of driving a mid-size sedan, until now.' I think there are a number of things which don't wash:

1) The technical language jars against the fantastical tone set by the video, maybe that's due to the.. 2) The American voice...okay not specifically because he's American, it's the sound of his voice...please don't make me go into detail regarding varieties of American accent...like, totally don't go there. 3) 'Until now' which makes me question who's having the dream. Is the boy dreaming of being a grown up so he can drive his dad's car?! Because let me tell you and this is the truth... no boys ever dream about driving mid size sedans. OR has this man's wonderfully surreal, adventure dream simply reverted horribly into his actual reality?

Okay so I'm doing another one, And What?

Here then is what I promise to be the concluding chapter of my impromptu mini-series on car ads. Has this piqued interest in car ads been caused by some murky subconscious lust or a result of the simple abundance of car ads? Well perhaps the former but to simplify it into saying there are a lot of car ads wouldn't be fair. There have been some visually remarkable cars ads recently.

This next one has been on TV a while now, so you and I have had ample chance to see it. Despite this it's not one I immediately sat up and took notice of, if anything I maybe ignored it at first thinking 'Oh here we go again, another tenuous link effort to piggy back on Star Wars.' But on examination I rather like it, and judging by the hit rating on Youtube so do quite a lot of you.

This has to be one of, if not my favourite adoption of the Star Wars franchise. The videography is spot-on, contributing enough dramatic irony to make most parents chuckle. Target audience laughing? For the right reason? Win.

My enduring feeling is the ad stands up so well to repeat watches; almost every scene makes you laugh but there are those subtler elements as well. Among my favourite: the mother's part bemused, part concerned facial expression at 0:26, the slow-zoom onto the baby doll's face at 0:19 and mini-darth's stumbling rebuff of his father's return at 0:37. There are a few more but I won't spoil it too much. Small in size but large in performance, the charms of this budding star not only make the ad unequivocally clear this is a family car.

Whether the timing of this ad is relevant is my only qualm; can you remember when the last Star Wars film was released? In a galaxy far, far away...long, long ago...that's for sure. Never the less Star Wars is an entity ALL children should be relentlessly exposed to, forever. This ad makes Curry's gratuitous, tasteless exploitation of two of cinema's finest... R2D2 and C3PO... look like the fail it was and rightly so.

I wonder where I found the energy to write this one..

Two car ads in a row? Perhaps I'm developing a bit of a thirst for some petrol based autonomy (a car) or perhaps i'm running out of steam...Just like the cars on the production line at Renault Z.E (Zero Emissions)

What a wonderful little ad this is. How strangely endearing yet pathetic are the petrol run appliances in this would-be-world? With their chug-chugs and splutters, this ad envisions how sad and cumbersome our lives will be if we never give up petrol. Of course it's all an exaggeration but a necessarily profound one at that. It tells not so much of the impracticalities of such a reliance on petrol, petrol in truth couldn't be more convenient with stations dotted freely around, but stirs feelings of disappointment in such a stale existence (mild sepia tones).

It's a mission statement rather than a sales pitch and in that sense I think this ad works nicely. Sort of a prerequisite; there'd be no use in just pitching the new cars without first instilling the need for them.

The concluding voice over 'you already switch to electricity for many things' could do with being more optimistic. Perhaps change the 'you' to 'we've', it's a small matter for picky buggers but hey. I'm a big advocate of the 'future-now' tone of voice rather than the 'placid future-angel/you think you're in paradise but we're actually going to harvest your organs tone of voice) We'll give them time to anglicise it though, as it's running first in Italy and France.

The power of a good demo

VW's new 'Amarok' AKA 'I'm-a-rock'

There's nothing like a simple demonstration to straightforwardly prove a point. A tried and tested method, a demonstration is one of the most directly effective ways to show off your product's selling point. For adverts though it's usually indicative of half-hearted creative thinking. In this case however Iris, the agency behind the idea, conjure up a well-calculated display of the USP 'Power,' something which you'd have to commit a fair 'whack' of intellectual 'oomph' or 'ooosh' to before coming up with an original idea.

Although this one's highly staged you can't say it's an ad exaggeration, they've gone to great lengths to create a real-life albeit not everyday demonstration. The visual imagery of the chimney coming down really 'hammers' the message of POWER home, although it would of been nice to see more debris, and hopefully gets the adrenaline going in every muscle-car, meat head American wannabe on our fine British roads...or those of us who own a boat.

Say love...isn't it about time we took down the garden shed?

From taboo to taboo

Blast! No Youtube video for this one, you'll all just have to keep your eyes peeled. The ad in question is for 'Diagnosis: Live from the clinic' which starts soon on Channel 4. Featuring a young man, home alone who turns on his laptop, drops his pants and lies down on the sofa opposite, presumably for a little pre-watershed DIY. At which point the resident Dr. Christen Jessen appears onscreen to assess our young fellow's affliction.

I like this ad because by placing one taboo next to another it creates a comparison; is he really going to wank?! Oh no, it's okay, he's only acknowledging the topic of his own sexual health...albeit in a rather fruity fashion. Despite its low-budget execution, the ad is effective because it has a good idea at the core. It manages to downplay the taboo of talking about sexual health; as a viewer you approve of him asking for help instead of masturbating before our eyes. This ad is wonderfully light hearted and gently pokes fun at a subject which is rarely approached.

What is Success?

Adverts like the following really nark me off; broadly promising the enhancement of your individuality, they're a dime a dozen these days. Honestly, who sees these ads and thinks 'yes, finally I can be the creative I've always wanted to be!' True creatives do like new toys and gizmos but when you get down to brass tax I think it's what's most convenient that helps you get your stuff done, and that tends to be what you have already. If you can't be creative with limited resources then you're not creative..surely?

Two things here get my back up: the pseudo-existentialist mumbo jumbo and the cruddy copy. It moves from 'Success doesn't need a desk' to 'Success goes big,' there no continuation of argument. The assertions made by each bit of copy come across to me as shallow at best and bullshit at worst. They don't seem like the kinds of things real successful people would feel or believe..they're stab in the dark arbitrary assumptions. Take a look see.

The idea: 'success' is relative to the individual. To me this waters down the potency of what success actually is. How can 'success' be you doing anything...even if it is your thang...diving in snow, eating popcorn or hailing a taxi, sitting on a train writing a text?! How is that success? To me, this is not a depiction of success...it's a depiction of a somewhat fulfilled lifestyle, if you have no aspirations. Which, ok, to some people is success...Being happy to be alive everyday. When you put it like that it sounds like a great concept. Doesn't it? Except it's nonsense. 'Success' to me is something that has to be worked out..something that in its absence we feel empty or unworthy and in its presence or upon its realisation we are truly lifted. Success is achievement and so to me 'being happy everyday' as 'success' is a far stretch of the imagination but doesn't ring true. Call me a hard ass and a kill joy but that's how I feel.

Always Read the Sneaky Print

This one may be short as I've pretty much dragged myself up and out of bed at 8.00am through the desire for a pre-work photo hunt. 'Always read the small-print' that's what they say isn't it? But these days who does, apart from me of course; due to some deep-seated obsessive compulsive desire to increase knowledge therefore dominance over you all I read manuals, books, magazines and even impromptu street-side flyers, those lowliest and most unloved of the promotional ... (it's not a disorder...honest.)

What's deliciously cunning of the inconspicuous, unobtrusive 'small print' is its total ability to be forgotten and unobserved. So do most of us either trust adverts to not be misleading or false or simply believe in this day and age they can't be due to bodies such as the ASA? I think it's most likely we just can't be bothered. One such sneaky-print offender I recently spied.

In truth I was actually hoping to find the 118 500 ad with the dude precariously hovering above presumably his girlfriend's fish tank before he durrr...drops his shaver in said tank. Do you know the one? Of course you do. Well, not only do I hate the ad and believe the service utterly redundant in the days of Google, Yell apps and under the shadow of 118 118 but think it's so cheeky that BT, a prominent telecommunications and internet service 'providings' giant should have the cheek to offer what is seemingly a helpful service at such an extortionate rate! Thus ends today's short yet vocally elaborate and somewhat overly wordy rant. Wish me luck snapping.