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

They're the same jerk characters who make up half the population of every sitcom universe because it's funny to laugh at how they trash the other characters. Haven't seen the Hyundai ad, but it reminds me of a roughly half-century-old Toyota ad where a gas station attendant looks on in frustration at a Toyota driver who constantly drives by but never into the gas station because it's so efficient.

Edit: Sorry about the duplicate posts, was caused by this morning's forum trouble. Deleted them now.

There is one of the online car buying website commercial that shows a guy saying 'I'm going to get a new car'.  The other person says 'What are you going to get?"  Silence follows.  No clue what to get!

Note to self: Gameboy has a serious problem with jerk sitcom characters.

On the plus side when it comes to heckling the TV, the ads are like shooting fish in a barrel.............my wife laughs, so they do serve a purpose for me.

z31maniac said:

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

 

This.  The Chevy tailgate one with the cat is actually rather funny...at least the full length version of it is.  Most of the rest are silly, but then again most commercials are anyway.  Ever seen a cologne/perfume commercial??  WTF???

I will say, the types of car commercials that bother me are the ones that show performance/enthusiast vehicles at a track or autoX type setting......yet if you so much as shift quickly they start denying any and all warranty claims. Wasn't it the old Hyundai Genesis commercial showing it drifting around Road Atlanta? 

But if they caught you actually taking it to a closed course event.........

Remember the infamous GT-R stuff, where they put launch control on the car to obtain the stated performance numbers, but if you used launch control (which they tracked in the ECU) they would deny any drivetrain related warranty claim. 

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Accuracy.  

The only car ad that seriously sticks out to me for how much I hated it was that Camry grounded to the ground one.

In reply to 93EXCivic :

Well it can't ground to the sky.......................

Semi unrelated, but how many years in a row is GMC going to use the same Truck-For-Christmas commercial?

(Semi related because those two people in in the commercial could very likely be a*holes.)

SKJSS (formerly Klayfish) said:

z31maniac said:

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

 

This.  The Chevy tailgate one with the cat is actually rather funny...at least the full length version of it is.  Most of the rest are silly, but then again most commercials are anyway.  Ever seen a cologne/perfume commercial??  WTF???

Have you seen the new cologne commercial with Johnny Depp? He's playing a guitar or something, in some post apocalyptic wasteland and puts it down, walking by the camera, and sorta looks over as if to say "this is ridiculous". But I think cologne/perfume commercials have become this sort of thing where it has to be that way. Maybe similar to car commercials that have to feature a suburban dad-guy with a kid eye rolling about their enthusiasm. Just some dumb sitcom that somehow has been on for 15 years making the same dick jokes and you didn't even realize it lasted more than a year (I'm looking at you, Two and a Half Men). 

Edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWkq9GN4Gq8

This one is almost cool in a Vanishing Point sort of way. 

This one is the one I was talking about- sooooo Stupid. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oeZ0nFsExs

ShinnyGroove (Forum Supporter) said:

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?

with all due respect, my race car is 37 years old, and started life as a yuppie car, not an econo-box.  You're way off-target here :)

On a more relevant note, my last three daily drivers were bought brand-new, at a dealer. So I probably am the target demographic. Thankfully, I don't recall almost ever seeing an ad for any of those cars. 

As to the post above yours.....the WORST commercials are all the pharma commercials. First, none of us are doctors so we can't just go out and buy Zevitrex or Lanosinide or Zekon for our ailments. Second, the billions spent on those ads and half the country can't even afford to pay for most of the drugs. Third, the US is literally the only civilized country on earth that allows advertising for prescription drugs. So, those are 100000% worse than car ads....but this being a car forum and not a pharma forum, that seemed like less fun of a alcohol-induced rant at the time :)

Commercials are stupid and dont work. This thread is stressing me out. I'm gonna go talk to my doctor about xanax, maybe on the way home I'll stop by macdonalds for an icy cold coke, any size for a dollar. That's a deal!

In reply to gearheadmb :

Drink enough of those and you'll need way more than Xanax, but don't expect to hear that on TV.  The biggest sponsor of all "news" and biggest donor to politics, and the company most members of Congress are heavily invested in is......

Commercials portray shiny happy people because they are accurate and know their audience.  Only shiny happy people are incapable of connecting such obvious dots.   

Woody (Forum Supportum) said:

Semi unrelated, but how many years in a row is GMC going to use the same Truck-For-Christmas commercial?

(Semi related because those two people in in the commercial could very likely be a*holes.)

I told my wife it's fake this year because there aren't two new trucks available at the dealers.  
 

johndej said:

Because they're selling to the average American?

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
― George Carlin

Now try selling cars to them. This is what you end up with. 

Man, looks like not missing much in life, not having a TV. 

Hope all is well with you, irish44j, my friend.

People still watch commercials?

lol...Hyundai driver is referrred to as "this entitled prick...."

Interesting topic as I also found the commercials seemed to be slightly different than before. I have just assumed it is now targeted towards the younger than Gen X crowd that seem to respond to ads that ride the line between breaking the 4th wall or not. So yes the actors play the shiny happy person on the edge of satire not a straight intent to portray a person that way. As my cousin's kid said to me last month, He grew up in and still lives in a world of fake videos and so commercials that acknowledge with a wink their ridiculous attempt to sell status, kind of works. 

So for instance those Brie Larson commercials are angling for Will Ferrell comedy inspired style for younger than GenX folks. 

Here is a commercial about tuning out commercials!

Progressive Blah Blah Blah

Well at least none of the car ads tag lines are "she'll like it too" like a certain enhancement supplement ad.

Datsun310Guy said:

I told my wife it's fake this year because there aren't two new trucks available at the dealers.  
 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/DQTVh5EF_tc?rel=0

 

All I can say in response to that is, dear Bob, look at the size of that thing compared to the human being it is supposed to carry around every day.  It's a solid 18" taller than she is.

Just to show I don't hate all car commercials (though i've seen the damn squeegee one like 10 times today while watching football).....

The Chevy one where the daughter secretly has her deceased mom's old barn-stored (Impala?) restored overnight for her dad was a real tear-jerker. Nailed it. 

I like the ones with the awd suv heading deep into the middle of bumbleberkeley with a man and his child, and the camera pans out to the drone shot showing just how far into nowhere they are, but the son is reasured because its awd. But they are wearing street clothes and there appears to be absolutely no food or survival gear in the car. I always think what a stupid E36 M3ty dad that guy is.