rants: | previous rants | the renault ads | pointless comments

So Renault aren't the only company who at times make me want to throw the TV set out the window. Given the opportunity, I'd be chucking enough tellies to make Keith Moon look like a respectable hotel guest. I could waffle on all day about all my gripes and groans experienced when subjecting myself to the daily diet of twaddle that spills out the screen, but this page is narrowed down to those commercials which market car companies.

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Citroën

Christ! This Citroën Xsara Picasso advert, doesn't it get on your tits? I can't vouch for the rest of the world as you might be getting served some other mush out there, but the current TV commercial for this car in Britain is utter hogwash. Worse still, they've been showing it for months and it gets on my nerves every time it comes on. Let me explain:

This ad is just one of a string of car commercials of late which attempt to cover up for the vehicles' obvious failings. Actually, we've had adverts like this for a long time, not just for cars, but there's been a notable glut of them this year. Basically, we're presented with images of the car, which unless you're a sad materialistic car freak of modern times looks very much like any other bland, featureless car on the market today. Critics might disagree and point to the 'remarkable contemporary styling' or some other such bollocks, but the exterior of this car has absolutely nothing that stands it apart from anything else.

In the advert, several Citroën Xsaras sit on a production line in the factory, and a series of robots busy themselves adding the finishing touches to the vehicles. Some of these robots then acquire that most annoying trait of TV commercial props: an identity; a brain; intelligence. This lifeless piece of metal - designed to spray jets of paint - we are supposed to assume now has the properties of a French impressionist artist¹. It then continues to spray an individual design on the car, pleasing and admiring itself as it goes, at which point an inspector comes walking along to check on progress.

These personality-conscious mechanisms fright at the sight of the inspector, and quickly respray all the cars silver - that boring, corporate colour that middle management capitalist dullards the world over aspire to. Grey with a superficial glitter, ostensibly. Okay, silver cars aren't bad as a rule, but today's vehicles insist on this colour in an attempt to persuade the crisp-munching, empty-headed masses of our society that they have some superiority, and they fall for it.

In a final insult to our intelligence, the robots cannot resist imprinting a small image of their quaint creativeness on the cars' bodywork, and spray a small 'Picasso' logo on the side. This, we are led to believe, proves beyond doubt that this car is just oozing with character, except you just can't see it. What fools we have been! For so long I thought this new model was totally void of definition, but all along it was bursting to express itself to me. What poor repressed cars they are, I must go and buy one, because for sure other people will instantly recognise what a true individual I am.

And the catchphrase that accompanies this tripe?

"The Citroën Xsara Picasso - free your mind."

Yes, too right, free your mind of this propaganda. Don't buy it unless you're sure you want to become a marketing man's dream.

Citroën aren't the only company to commit this sin. I will account for some of the others when I feel the need to express myself again, which will probably be sometime after I've decided to spray myself silver and blend into modern life.

¹ Before anybody says anything, yes I know Picasso was Spanish, not French.

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Ford

I'm sorry, but I just have to comment on the most pretentious, smug, sickening car advert I've seen in a long time. In fact, most car adverts fall into at least one of these categories, but this time it's not Renault that's the culprit, it's Ford, and their most undesirable bland new model, the Focus.

The current series of adverts depicts a collection of sad fashion victims stood posing pathetically as this splodge of vanilla ice cream on wheels drives past them, at which point they all exercise startled facial expressions, which masquerade as feelings of disillusionment in their own meaningless, materialistic, career-driven, dribbling little lives, and they consider how they can manipulate people in any small way to obtain the selfish right to own this piece of cardboard candy. The voiceover implies that this vehicle 'demands attention'. I suspect the reason for this is that no-one in their right mind would pay a blind bit of notice to it otherwise.

It's amazing how several million pounds of advertising can seduce people to the point of beguilement. Even the music is smug. Perhaps we need these must-have idiots in our society to help offload half the nation's undeserved wealth elsewhere. Unfortunately, it only goes into the hands of the undeserving corporations, who use half of it to force ever more of this rubbish upon us. Somebody somewhere is laughing. Funnily enough, this time, it's me.

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Mercedes

Right, I've had enough of this; time for action! Think Mercedes, what springs to mind? Posh people? Wrong! People who like to think they're posh, more like. Following on from my rants about Citroën, Renault and Ford models and their TV advertising, I simply cannot contain myself anymore at this codswallop. Once again, it's apologies to readers outside the UK. I don't know what culture-encompassing claptrap they put out over there to please you, but the commercial on the telly for Mercedes in Britain at present drives me up the wall, oh and, err.... into the river, presumably.

There's a few irritant shortened variations on the ad, but the main version features an array of middle class tosspots enjoying the dubious pleasures of owning and driving their my, aren't these models varied Mercedes vehicles. In an attempt to explain that Mercedes cars don't just appeal to people who are full of crap, it poses the question to viewers:

"Do you think all Mercedes drivers are the same?"

Well, that's easy: no. Some are bigger arseholes than others.

This myriad quartet of gleeful persons are shown at their worst (i.e. in their everyday lives), appreciating the unspecified delights of their cars. We have, amongst others, the dreary duo of thirtysomething women travelling in one of those ugly new small, urban, feature-saving models, following a shopping outing, which I'll presume to have taken place in Kensington or some other such 'exclusive' location, humming along smugly to the advert soundtrack and talking about knickers, as far as I can gather. Then we have the token ethnic diversity representative in his overpriced yellow sports model, and worst of all, Mr Middle Class Family Man (with a Scottish accent thrown in for devolution pleasantries) and his two kids in the needless all-terrain model.

Clearly desperate for a situation where such a vehicle would have the faintest use, we see them driving through the Highlands approaching a fork in the road, which leads on the one hand to.... well, the road basically (i.e. the route any sensible person would take), and on the other hand to a track freshly raked by the advertising production crew so as to lead to a river crossing only feet from the road. In fact, it's more of a puddle really but we'll assume it could be Niagara Falls. The self-satisfied father then asks his accompanying brats,

"What's it to be then boys, the bridge or the river?"

to which we hear screams of 'Riveeerrr, yipppeeeeeee'. I think they edited out the bit where the elder brother goes on to say "else you'll render this all-purpose vehicle useless for the commercial daddy".

So it is now clear that we should fear a complete cross-section of our society, as they too might be Mercedes drivers. Yes, you too, apparently, can drive a Mercedes, not just upper class twits with more money than sense. Come and join the club Mr Unemployed, Mr Deep Pit Mineworker and Mr Ex-Con, this brand has been designed for you all! Do you think Mercedes fear they have an image problem?

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Toyota

Next up is the Toyota Yaris. I haven't seen this ad for a few weeks now, but you're not going to get away with it. I saw it, it's no use pretending you didn't show it. Well, seeing as I can't remember too much, I'll be brief. The slogan for this car was 'designed to be different from the inside out'. Or, to put it my way, 'it's all right inside but the rest is a bit shit'.

Just what are they trying to say? Here we are presented with another bland, silver car with no redeeming exterior image, which Toyota obviously realise, so they try and baffle us by implying that all the good stuff is hidden away where we can't see it. "Honestly, it's great, we know it doesn't look it but really, please believe us...." Well, why don't you just make it look great then, and you wouldn't have to spend money trying to convince us, would you? Just what is supposed to be topsy-turvy here, the car or the marketing campaign?

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Audi

Why must we put up with these continual lies? Yet again, an advert has appeared on British television - and this time it's Audi who are the culprits - which tries to convince us of the opposite of what is actually being advertised. Virtually every car ad these days seems to assume the colour silver as a prerequisite of the featured model. This is tosh! Silver is dull, for boring people in a boring world. As you've probably guessed from looking around this site, I like colours, they mean a lot to me. They brighten my day, and only the most vivid shades will do. Silver cars are fine when produced in equal quantities with any other colour, but these days they are thrown at us as if to imply we're being treated to vehicles made of jewels, and people actually believe it. They think that driving around in a city dominated by grey glass and concrete office blocks in silver cars is the way of the future. Well, it might have been when Buck Rogers was on the TV, but I think it's a frightening vision of things to come if we can't have a bit of fun and colour in our lives.

Right, enough about silver, I've spouted off about that before. Why does this advert really piss me off? Well, it's the association with colour that really nags me. This car is seen driving around in a pool of water, which sprays to the sides and forms mirages of psychedelic colours in all directions, accompanied by the soundtrack of Jimi Hendrix. How dare they! Hendrix was a god, an inspired, talented individual who created great colourful visions in his genial lyrics and performances; the Audi on the other hand is a heap of mass-produced metal with as much character as a cardboard box. The implication is that under the surface, this car is a vibrant symbol of hedonistic energy bursting to escape from behind a deceptive exterior. Well, the advert certainly is deceptive, because what you're really seeing is an unremarkable piece of corporate tripe masked by the cheap sabotage of a music legend's persona.

If they are going to unleash this blatant misrepresentation upon millions of citizens, then I am going to unleash my own interpretation to you visitors in return, it's the least I can do. If they really want to convince us that their new car is the height of hippie chic, they should at least have the vision and guts to design something a little more characteristic and groundbreaking. In the annals of time, the Audi will be long forgotten amongst a glut of meaningless vehicles which made up the numbers. The Renault 4, on the contrary, will be a hero admired and adored for generations, remembered because it made a difference (a bit like Jimi Hendrix).

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BMW

When was the last time I had a rant about some random TV car ad? Well, it's been quite a few years, discounting Renault's own efforts, and if I could have found the energy there's dozens deserving of comment that have come and gone. Well, here's one I'm unable to resist:

I don't recall seeing many BMW commercials in the past, either because they were so forgettable, or because they've shunned such sales approaches in recognition that the smug persona of the average BMW owner is hardly likely to entice newcomers into the fold. Maybe business is bad, because in 2009 they've now bothered to bring forth a new batch of bothersome bollocks, making out that there is some hitherto unimaginable clan of unpretentious Bimmer enthusiasts young and old roaming the nation (or at least the most spectacularly panoramic bits, conveniently). We see them portrayed as chuckly old grandads with hats and overly good-natured young boys playing with scale models, a bit like the old Werther's Original combo but without the frightening 'aah' squeak accompanying the vomit-inducing pat on the head. When was the last time you saw anybody like this in a BMW (if you could even see through the ubiquitous tinted windows)? A happy old man in a hat? Where are the superficial, power-crazed capitalistic buggers and unrelentingly selfish bad drivers we have all come to know and love? Nowhere! No, we are instead treated to a cornucopia of classic Bimmer drivers amassing at club rallies and almost imparting a vestige of normality.

This just isn't right, I'm thinking as I sit in wonder and begin to unravel the likely punchline that will unfold in 7, 6, 5 seconds from now. And here it comes:

"We realised a long time ago that what you make people feel is just as important as what you make."

Or, to put it another way - my way (the unofficial and subjective version not sanctioned in any way by the manufacturer, I hasten to add, ahem):

"So long as you're blessed with a materialistic and eternally ignorant customer base, you can sell them any old shit you like."

This really does seem to be the hidden message behind so many car commercials of the last decade and beyond. In this particular ad, the former of these lines is delivered to the backdrop of a car being roughly sketched and then assembled in clay prototype form, with seeming disregard for design. It appears to be an admission of 'we know this thing looks rubbish, but that's not what counts.' What does count to BMW is 'joy', apparently, something we cannot see or measure in any tangible form, we just have to believe it. This shift from credible design to invisible values is a cheap way for manufacturers to make less effort, and then subliminally pump ignorance of the new deal into our minds like a form of propaganda.

Some scarce car companies are innovative. They set the standards that others follow. Fewer still set standards that others don't follow, because their ideas are too extreme and beyond mainstream acceptance. Renault broke the rules when they rather bewilderingly made the decision to put arses onto the back of their new range in the 1990s. It wasn't groundbreaking, but it was a step in the opposite direction to the conformist rear designs of most other models.

I've never understood what it is about the average BMW, with its bombastically brutal and bare looks, that thrills and entrances so many people, though I can always guess who those people will be. They're the ones who can never appreciate what it is I see in a Renault 4. They're also the ones who succumb to whatever base aspirations society throws at them, and hence, the current commercial has been expertly crafted to hit their sweet spot. By this, I refer to the casual acceptance of watered down humdrum dross that persons underexposed to edgier alternatives invariably display. You know the sort. The friend with a fear of spicy food who, when confronted with a curry menu, always opts for a korma; the average early teen with a penchant for top twenty chart toppers if only because they've been played to death on commercial radio and have fed their way into the subconscious cell systems; or the mate who's dismissive of rarer physical features in a potential partner and seeks only the blandest blonde bombshells after years of subversion via media misrepresentation.

It seems to me that BMW owners just unflinchingly believe the hype. Slap together some meaningless dialog with a Lightning Seeds soundtrack (hmm, that's not the first time they've shown up on these pages), and why not throw in a chicken tikka masala too? Feed it to the brainless one-uppers and off they go, tootling down the showroom with their wad of unhealthily earned cash. Mr Jones next door has got a BMW, what joy! Ah well, he always was a bit of an arsehole.

Update 2011-04-30: I note I'm not the only person who feels this way :)
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071126053518AAARFBk
http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t86886.html

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rants: | previous rants | the renault ads | pointless comments