Why do car commercials show drivers of their cars as self-centered shiny happy people and/or morons?

We all know that many car commercials are just stupid, but a few I saw this evening (that I've seen before, incidentally) all seem to portray the owners of their new cars as either morons or just jerks. I know there are a LOT more like this , but these from tonight I thought were good examples. 

- The Chevy multiflex tailgate. Putting aside the fact that most people will never use any of the features and it's sure to be a rust point and/or something that breaks in what otherwise would be a simple pickup truck tailgate. In one of these, it's actually a pretty good commercial with the cat that acts like a dog, herds cattle, etc. But the guy is parked next to some old dude fishing and all he does is talk about his truck's tailgate, when it's clear the guy fishing doesn't give a crap. The other multiflex one the guy is out front of his house showing off his tailgate to his neighbor, who very clearly doesn't seem very impressed (nor does the guy's kid). 

- The Hyundai "squeegee" one at the gas station. So, dude pulls his EV into a gas station, doesn't buy anything, and then proceeds to clean his windows with the squeegee. Then the attendent is like "you gonna buy some gas" and the guy (and the other cusomters who ARE buying gas) seems to be all offended that a business would expect him to actually buy something in order to use their facilities. He finally buys like a dollar's worth of gas as a berkeley you to the attendant. I mean, a lot of EV/hybrid commercials kind of do this, they throw out this "moral superiority" thing against people driving (gasp!) gasoline-powered cars.

- Then of course there are plenty of ones where someone gets their new car and kind of thumbs their noses at the neighbor's (older, or not as cool) car in the same class. The friendly neighbor is always like "hey, nice car!" and then the new car owner will say something like "yeah, it's got twice as much cargo area as your (insert different brand here)" I mean, who acts like this in the real world? Massively self-centered shiny happy people, I guess? 

Anyhow, maybe it's just me....just saw several of these tonight and they make me want to buy the vehicle LESS, since I don't want to be one of the people in the ads.

Honorable mention: the "Altima Race Car" one that is shown every so often, where apparently stupid people think the stock Altima they're in is a "professional race car" because it has vinyl stickers on it.......

/ get off my lawn rant.

Because they're selling to the average American?

johndej said:

Because they're selling to the average American?

That's a sad statement if the customer base for cars actually IS a bunch of self-centered shiny happy people and/or morons lol. 

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

Honorable mention: the "Altima Race Car" one that is shown every so often, where apparently stupid people think the stock Altima they're in is a "professional race car" because it has vinyl stickers on it.......

That one is probably the most believable since most people haven't experienced cornering on the limit except probably when the road is slippery, also thinking that any kind of driving on a track is "racing."

irish44j (Forum Supporter) said:

johndej said:

Because they're selling to the average American?

That's a sad statement if the customer base for cars actually IS a bunch of self-centered shiny happy people and/or morons lol. 

If?

Ironic this posted up........the GMC people clapping to "we will rock you" to demonstrate hands free drivng.........it's just so douchey.

Haven't seen a car commercial in years thanks to my Roku.

Evidently, I don't miss them.

They do it because they sell cars doing it.  If they didn't sell cars with this kind of ad, they would run ads with us in them - each the heart of reason and decorum.

"Back in the day" car ads would tell you what the car would do for you/what features it had.

Maybe a decade ago it was mostly about the price, or what the payment would be.

Today, it's all about 'lifestyle' and ads have nothing to do with the actual product being sold.

How much did you pay?  $3,999 - it's $4,000.   

What's the payment?  Huh?

That Nissan Rogue commercal where the woman is driving, husband passenger, and she backs into a pole. She's all giggly and laughing it off. Thank God for the Nissan protection whateverthehell sonar crap. No big deal. Hee hee, laugh at backing into something.

That commercial completely triggers me. Spit flying out of my mouth. triggers me. I've run calls where kids got run over with cars. Nothing funny about backing into something.

They're  selling status and to many that is displayed as superiority. 

Commercials I have seen in the last year are written to appeal to the dumbest of society. I pretty much stopped watching TV because of it. The constant reminder of just how stupid some people are was depressing. 

John Welsh said:

They're  selling status and to many that is displayed as superiority. 

I had three folks who worked for me ask me (at different times) if there was some reason I couldn't afford a new car. They were all perpetual 3-year leasers and I bought off-lease cars and kept them for a decade, so I always had the oldest vehicles. They would all quote me their monthly lease cost, less taxes, and completely ignore the $3600 they paid up front every three years and try to convince me they were somehow driving for less cost than me. They all were influenced by new and shiny, none were car people. Thankfully, none of them worked in costing.

Advertising died at some point in recent memory (well, my brain is stuck in the past, let's say some point after 2000). When's the last time you saw a good Superbowl commercial? When's the last time you saw an insurance commercial that didn't insult your intelligence?

John Welsh said:

They're  selling status and to many that is displayed as superiority. 

This has been the theme of advertising since forever.  Not sure why people think this is new.

Snake oil salesmen have been doing this tactic in the 1800's.  

Most of the items that you now "need" were new at some point, and they all needed some kind of "you are a better person" thing to make people want it.  That's how every single electric device was sold- vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines, etc.  It's how cars were sold over horses.  It's how computers were sold when people had no idea why they would ever want one (let alone need one).

It's how new features that you never knew you needed are sold.

And in this case for car stuff, most people here think they are at the pinnacle of driving, so any help what so ever is just the worst thing ever.  Except for the other 99% of the drivers out there who are clueless.

The Chevy one, I'll at least given them credit: They have the guy who's obsessed with his tailgate giving the typical ridiculously over the top enthusiasm about some new feature that you usually see in commercials. That part isn't unusual. What they've changed is that they've given the person he's bragging about those features to a more realistic reaction, being annoyed instead of impressed.

The Nissan commercial,  with Brie Larson driving a metalic orange Sentra like a full fledged, 5 alarm shiny happy person?

That's actually 100% accurate.

I can't imagine how high my blood pressure would be if I stuff like this bothered me. 

 

I too cut the cable cord almost a decade ago and have gone most of that time without seeing proper commercials. When I go visit my parents who usually have at least 3 televisions on 3 different channels I am absolutely dumbfounded by the commercials. 

I kind of wish all TV ads were as honest as this

z31maniac said:

I can't imagine how high my blood pressure would be if I stuff like this bothered me. 

 

I can't say it bothers me at the moment. I think maybe there was an influence of football afternoon beers....lol

The only commercials that truly bother me are for insurance.  So much money is spent on advertising, and anytime I actually need to make use of my insurance, I have to freaking fight with the person on the phone to get what I've been paying for for the last 15 years.

Lots of shouting at clouds and telling the kids to get off our lawns in this thread.  :)  It reminds me of when some thing happens in current events and people are like "we don't deserve this!" and I silently think to myself "we got EXACTLY what we deserve."  Nobody ever made money by overestimating the intelligence of the general population.

Maybe a group of people who fetishize station wagons and turn 30 year old econo-boxes into race cars may not be the target demographic for these ads?

I think the only car commercial that ever truly bothered me was a Subaru ad about 10 years ago.  They spent the whole ad talking about how buying a new AWD Subaru meant you no longer needed snow tires.  That pissed me off, as the ad was a blatant lie with the potential to harm the safety of anyone who listened to it and didn't know better.