The automobile industry is one of the most competitive one when it comes to marketing and advertising. Over the years we have thousands of ADs in this space, some are just to smart while other just downright suck. In this blog post we will look at some of the most interesting and humorous car ADs of all time. Volkswagen was probably the first brand to start the trend of minimal car ADs and since then every major car brand has tried their hands to produce similar ADs for their cars. The list has more than one mention of Volkswagen as they literally started this trend of creating these ADs.
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This AD puts the first ever wheel on the left end of the timeline and puts BMW's car on the far right. This simple and minimal AD literally shows the evolution of technology and BMW is here to claim it all by showing themselves as the supreme evolution, as the wheel is on the left (the beginning) and the car is on the right (the end).
The pioneer of these ads had to be mentioned on this list, as without them it would be incomplete indeed. In this AD we can see police officers hiding behind a Volkswagen polo during what seems like a shootout. The officers hide behind the polo car as the brand wants the viewer to perceive the car as 'very tough' which is then complimented by the copy on bottom right of the creative.
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The ad focuses on hinting onto the childhood dreams of the viewer/reader of the AD. While the copy clearly takes shots on the more affordable and more widespread options in the market. As they equate their product with 'dreams' and something aspirational that people wait decades to get their hands onto.
This car brand is not very famous worldwide, but it is one of the oldest car brands to exist and is one of the earliest brands to come out of Japan. The above AD is for their van and the copy very smartly plays on their seating capacity while showcasing humour in their copy by suggesting that it can pick up 5 times the amount of women Lamborghini does. The AD in a very playful manner tries to accept and glorify their feature while showcasing it through the AD.
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Porsche continues to portray their car to be something aspirational and something that someone gets after attaining a certain status in their life or after a major life event. The AD copy suggests that their cars are fast and can easily allow you to beat the traffic on your way home, but if you look closely on the copy below you'd read that the spending a day on the race track seeing Porsche on the track is enough for people to decide that they want to buy a Porsche, as you'd be disgusted by the thought of what you drove to the races if it was not a Porsche.
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BMW and AUDI have been known to be in brand wars for ages as both take shots on each other to show themselves as the superior one. In this AD it starts with BMW congratulating AUDI for winning the title of being the South African car of the year, all seems normal until we see the footer text where it reveals that BMW is actually the 'world' car of the year winner.
The AD shows two lanes full of cars while one red car drives on sand leaving tire trails behind. The copy on the below of the ad asks the viewer to spot the range rover, though very clearly range rover is the one on the right, Range Rover tries to draw distinction between them and the other card by making it stand out all the while also highlighting its off-roading capabilities.
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Porsche is a key player in the Le Mans race and this ad copy is highlighting exactly that by showing the result of 1983's result where at each position except the 9th the race position was won by a Porsche car. The ad copy says "Nobody's perfect" which directly relates to the result below, through this AD Porsche accepts the result while also using a simple technique that increases the trust of the people. That is - that people believe a nearly perfect review more than a purely perfect one for eg. a 9/10 review is more believe able than a 10/10.
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Volkswagen recreated the famous zebra walk crossing photo by the 'Beatles' which is arguably one of the biggest music bands of all time. Coincidently Volkswagen has a car named the 'beetle' so they aligned their cars on a crosswalk just like how the 'Beatles' did it to gain attention from people who had seen the famous music band's picture.
A picture says a thousand words, this is put perfectly into action by Volvo as we can see in the picture above that a monster truck is literally crushing each and every car that is in it's way, while only one car is there whose roof was still intact and not as bad as the others. This shows the quality of the car while also showing the built to last safety that people can rely on, which is ultimately complemented by the copy in the middle of the ad creative
