WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- "Zoom Zoom," you know as Mazda."Let's Go Places," that's Toyota."The Ultimate DrivingMachine" can only be BMW.How do we know this?Because thanks to advertising,it's been planted in our brains.No doubt, car ads are everywhere,pervasive and persuasive.So how did we get frommodest newspaper adsrun off a printing pressto all the press you could wanton your favorite car at the tap of an app?And why is MatthewMcConaughey talking to himselfin a Lincoln Navigator?Where is this headedand where has it been?Today, we're exploringthe history of car ads.Since the first automobilerolled off the assembly line,there have beenadvertisements to sell them.In the early days of selling cars,convincing people to get behind the wheelof this newfangled horseless contraptionwithout fear of premature deathwas the main goal.The ads were basic black and white printsthat emphasized the automobileas the ultimate in luxury and convenience.The very first car advertisementwas done by the Wintonmotor company in 1898with a headline that simply stated,"Dispense with a horse."As the popularity of cars increased,ads turned to extravagant illustrationsand bold slogans to competefor drivers' attention.The message shifted from safetyto emphasizing easy mobilityand where the car could take you,into the secluded woods,to a neighborhood barto meet someone special,or the opportunity to make adramatic exit if the need be.You know when we wrotethat, it sounded fine,but when I say it out loud,it just sounds like we're selling the carto a serial killer.Henry Ford capitalized on this concept ofgo anywhere and do anythingwhen he introduced the Model T in 1908.The first ad appeared in Life Magazine,and while there were otherbetter known competitorslike Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Packard,their ads pitched expensive brandsthat spoke to wealthy Americans,you know, the Great Gatsby types.But Ford believed that not just the richbut all Americans wantedtheir own automobile.His Model T ad said things like,"A car for the multitudes"and "High price qualityin a low price car."Because the Ford motor companymastered mass productionto a tee.- To a tee.Are you kidding me?The car, it's called that.- How'd you not know that shit?- What's going on?Because the Ford motor companymastered mass productionto a tee, Ford was ableto keep the price downat just $850, about $20,000 today.And that was the biggestselling point, the price.The strategy of targetingthe common man paid off,and within the first year,Ford sold 10,000 Model Ts.Ford's pitch to the average personrevolutionized the natureof American society.Middle income familiesgained a new mobilityand life was no longercentered around your homeand neighborhood.People could escape their small townand see the rest of the country.A newfound freedom wasborn with Ford's simpleappeal to the masses.By the 1920s, car adsreflected the optimismand freewheeling sign of the times.As a result of this carefree decade,consumers hungered for morethan just a sturdy and affordable car.They wanted style, speed,and luxury to boot.With the passing of the 19th Amendment,women finally got the right to vote.As a result, the 1920s and '30ssaw advertisers specificallytargeting women in their ads.The concept of being incontrol of your own destinywas a prevalent theme.This continued throughout World War II,when men were fighting on the battlefieldand women filled the labor force.The ad guys were fully on boardwith selling to the ladies,but sometimes a heavy dose of chauvinismwas thrown in with the pitch.A 1940 Buick advertisement proclaimed,"Weep no more, ladies."Now there's a big careven you can drive."The ad went on to statethat the Buick's interiorwas roomy enough to hold a tea party.Nothing wrong with that.That's not weird at all.During the postwar years,tons of suburbs popped up in America,creating a driving forcebehind a major car boom.People commuting back and forth from workin the cities needed a car,and it was nirvana for advertisers.1950s car advertising was all aboutshowing off a car's featuresand its great designs.By this time, American carbrands had hit their stride,and consumers werefamiliar with the models,so advertisers relied on that familiarityto cut to the chase.Pages in magazines werestuffed with polished images.Add to the mix, a littleinvention called television,and car advertisers had anothermethod to reach consumersin a big way.Traditional media like radio,magazines, and newspaperswere still important inthe early part of the '50s,but television was quicklybecoming the cornerstoneof many advertisers' national media plans.The advertisers' goal in the 1950swas to link car ownershipwith the idea ofcomfortable suburban living.Some '50s TV commercialsoffered cute, rhyming jingleslike "See the USA in your Chevrolet,"but others went right for the jugularto get your attention.In car crazed southern California,automobile pitchmen were nuttyand berserk figures on TV screens.One guy named Cal Worthingtonstood taller and lasted longerthan any of these other deranged dudes.Sporting a Stetson hatand speaking with a twangy Oklahoma drawl,he broke the mold when it cameto outlandish car salesmen,willing to do anything toget you in the showroom.While some guys posed with cute puppiesto get customers on the lot,Cal upped the ante andhad a menagerie of furry,exotic sidekicks.Actually, they were zoo animals,and he always announced themas his fictitious dog, Spot.By the mid-1950s, cars beat packaged goodsand cigarettes as the mostheavily advertised products.Everything was going greatfor American automakersand the ad men hired tosell their latest models.Then, in 1960, it all changedwhen one ad hit like a bolt of lightning.Overnight, Volkswagen'sThink Small campaignhad the American public talking aboutthe tiny German made Beetle.This campaign catapulted Volkswageninto the stratosphere of car advertising.Teenagers ripped it out of magazinesand pinned it on their walls.And the ad guys on MadisonAvenue viewed it with suspicionand jealousy.It was a game changer foran ad industry that had,until that time, hammered customerswith over the top, extravagant claimsof how their product changed their life.Volkswagen's approach was creative,subtle, and self-deprecating.Think Small and Lemon campaignsand others that followeddidn't talk down to consumersand appealed to their intelligence.Volkswagen's honest and simple campaignfit right in with thechanging times of the '60s,where youth culture was becoming a force,and a rebellion against massconsumerism was taking shape.Advertisers were soonfollowing Volkswagen's lead,trashing overhyped sales pitchesfor more playful campaignsthat stressed individualityrather than conformity.Marketing and advertising pros consideredthe Think Small campaign thegold standard of advertising.Volkswagen Beetle sales grewinto the hundreds of thousandsthroughout the 1960s,and by 1970s, sales had topped outat over 570,000 in the US.In the 1980s, with thestock market riding highand the rise of Yuppiesand Gordon Gekko-typecorporate raiders now part of the culture,what you drove was seenas a status symbol.If you were driving aLamborghini or a Porsche,then you had made it.As a result of the climate,consumers were seeing morehigher class and foreign car ads.The downside was that car ads in the '80shad become pretty cookiecutter in their presentation.A cabin so quiet you can hear a pin dropand a relaxed, practically comatose driverat ease behind the wheelwas par for the coursein a car commercial.Breaking from themonotony was one campaignthat showed a little fish in a big pondcan compete with thesharks, my favorite animal.With the goal of boosting sales in the US,in 1986, the Japanesecar manufacturer Isuzulaunched their Joe Isuzu commercial.Armed with only a limited budget,the campaign surprised everyonewith its unique approachand became a wild success.A fictional car salesman whooozed the smarmy demeanorand lied through his fake smile facemade outlandish claims aboutthe abilities of the Isuzu.Isuzu really leaned into the factthat car ads oftenexaggerated the product,and people were refreshed by the honesty.This comic take on theshady salesman clichewas a hit with consumers.But there was one little problem,he was more popular than the car.Except for an immediate18% spike in sales,Isuzu's success was short lived.Ads that followed attempted to highlightmore features of the car andput it back in the spotlight.But for audiences, the truestar was always Joe Isuzu.The campaign was retired in 1990with a tough lesson learned,don't let the messengeroutshine the message.What advertisers had discoveredis that celebrity endorsements,particularly car endorsements,can be a major crapshoot.Choose the right starand it can create a buzz,boost sales, and even bolster the brand.Pick the wrong personality,and an automaker might turn off customersand lose millions ofdollars in the process.For example, wanting tocourt a younger demographic,Chrysler hired Celine Dion tothe tune of 14 million dollarsas spokeswoman for their 2002 Pacificabecause that made sense.Dealers only sold around 4,000 Pacificasafter the ad campaign beganin stark contrast to theprojected 60,000 units.Yikes.One lesson the ad industry knows wellis that a spot during the Super Bowlis the Holy Grail for advertisers.It's a cardinal rule that advertisers keeptheir new campaigns under wrapsto avoid spoiling the big reveal,but for the 2011 SuperBowl, Volkswagen was stuckbetween a rock and a hard place.It had bought two 30-secondspots for the big day,one showing off the new Jettaand the other for the new Passat.The spot called The Forcefor the Passat modelfeatured a little boydressed up as Darth Vader.However, there was alsoa 60-second versionthat the Deutsch ad teamwho created the spotfelt was much stronger.Unfortunately, it was too longto run during the Super Bowl,so in an attempt to stand outand get as much mileage as possible,Deutsch made the bold move ofposting The Force on YouTubethe Wednesday before the game.By early the next morning,the spot had 1.8 million hits.It scored 17 millionviews before the coin tossat game time on Sunday.To date, The Force has rackedup 61 million views on YouTubeand is the most sharedSuper Bowl ad of all time.Of all the ads that runduring the Super Bowl,it's the car industry that'sbeen the single largestadvertising category every year since 2010with advertisers willingto pay a steep pricefor a 30-second spot.This year, it was 5.5million dollars on average.It's obvious having your commercial playduring the Super Bowl is a big deal,but here's something interesting.2017 Super Bowl waswall-to-wall car commercials.This year, only seven brands ran a spot.So where did they go?Online.Turns out The Forcecommercial was just a previewof things to come foradvertising and the Internet.Social media has exploded in recent years,and being savvy about thevarious digital platformsis a must-have skillfor advertisers to havein their toolbox.Social media marketinghas become the pillarof the advertising industry,and the car businessis the leading charger.Pretty much every brandhas an online presence,and it's become a huge toolfor generating hype for a new car.The Dodge Demon, the 2024Bronco, and the new Suprahave all used teaser campaignsto get people stoked fortheir upcoming release.The conversation betweenusers and car brandshas gotten so fluid over social mediathat in 2016, one guy inSpain posted a hashtagbuy a car on Twitter challengeto see if any manufacturerwould sell him a vehicleover the social network.Nissan answered his challengeand gave him a tour ofthe new Nissan X-Trailwith the Periscope app.The guy then asked his followersif he should buy it and they said yes.So he did, naturally.Wow, this guy bought a car,even picked it up at Spain headquarterswithout even going to the dealership.The future is so full of potential.This could totally changethe way we buy cars.It's a brave new worldwhen it comes to automotive advertising.Unlike in the past wherecar advertising was focusedstrictly on what the carcould do for the consumer,today, it's about what thecar can do to the consumer.When Matthew McConaugheyconducts an orchestraof his surroundings behindthe wheel of a stationaryLincoln Navigator orstands next to a sleekLincoln Continental in theshimmering shallow wateron a glacial plain in Iceland,these images are evocative.Car advertisers areappealing to your senses.They're going for theright side of your brain,that emotional, creativechunk of gray matter.It's miles away from the paint by numbers,logical left brain side of the lumpthat ads of the 1950s tapped into.Things are moving at suchlightning quick speeds.Who knows?Five years from now,taking a virtual test driveon your iPhone might seem as old school aslooking at a print ad in a newspaper.A big thank you to Honeyfor sponsoring this episodeof WheelHouse.Honey is a free browser extensionthat helps you get the best dealanytime you buy something online.I had to replace mybrakes a few weeks ago,and Honey helped me save a bunch of money.I'm talking cold hard cash.All it takes is two clicks toinstall Honey on your browser,and it's free.Honey works silently in thebackground while you shop,scanning and testing everycoupon code on the Internet.When you're on a checkout pagewhere you can enter a promo code,Honey will automaticallytry all known coupon codesfor that store.If Honey finds a code that works,it will apply the one that saves youthe most money to your card.Honey does everythingfor you, it's that easy.If you don't have Honey installed already,you're literally passing up free money,so hit that link belowand get Honey today.Remember, it's all free,takes two clicks, and saves you cash.We look at weird stuffin car culture and history every week,so make sure you hit thatyellow Subscribe buttonright around here so younever miss an episode.If you want to know more about Henry Ford,check out this episode of WheelHouseor check out this episode of Up to Speed.Be nice.See you next time.