European Rivalry Advertising and Why America Should Do It Too
The Europeans do it best. They make the best cars, they have some o the best roads and highway systems, and one other key thing they do the best is rivalry through advertising. As a car enthusiast, and a member o many dierent orums/clubs all over the world I have seen some o the best and most bitter attacks through European advertising. Why doesn’t America have this sort o advertising? It’s really hard to say, and honestly I’m not too sure.
BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz have always attacked one another on the European shores. But, it seems like, as soon as they have hit stateside, they calm down. They only seem to do advertisements based on their cars and what not. They don’t go at one another like they do in Europe. This is unortunate really. It is more un or us as the consumer to see car companies attack one another with unny and thought provoking advertising.
Take the newest orms o American advertising that has attacked another make, the Cadillac CTS and Pontiac G8 GT. Both nice cars in their own rights, but they have both attacked the BMW 5-Series. Cadillac calling the 5er the boys club and Pontiac saying that its new G8 is aster, sportier and hands down the better car, mostly because it costs between $20,000 and $40,000 less. What does BMW have to say about this? Nothing really. They actually have no even batted an eye at Caddy nor Pontiac. Sad. The American competition hasn’t even made BMW holler back in any ashion. In act, BMW just put out a new advertisement taking a crack at the big SUV market and saying the X3 has its own identity underneath. That is the most trash talking advertisement I’ve seen rom BMW towards another company really.
ord has also started to say that their new usion is better than the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord in dierent American magazines. They did this whole campaign, where they supposedly invited readers o the magazines to test the new usion versus the Camry and Accord. They o course liked the ord the best o all… What have the Japanese counterparts said? I you guessed nothing, than you were very right. It obviously doesn’t matter to them that ord is taking pot shots. It also shows that the American public don’t really care either, especially since the Camry and Accord still continue to sell better than ords.
Now take the Euro ads, they are entertaining, un and illed with what seems to be true dislike or one another. That is what makes an advertisement campaign stick out in the public’s mind. When they see a big sign or a commercial that points to BMW being better than Audi, and then Audi being better than BMW, this excites us. This is also just what happened in Europe. BMW posted an ad o their new 3-Series that had won the world car o the year award, while Audi won the South Arican car o the year award. Audi ired back, and hit BMW where it hurt, stating “Congratulations to BMW or winning car o the year 2006. rom the winner o six consecutive Le Mans 24 hour races 2000-2006.” Subaru jumped in as well, while BMW and Audi were still going at it. Bentley ended up inishing the ight with the photo pictured to your right.
This is how the Americans should be showing o their cars. With some knock down, no holds barred, I’m better than you advertising. Similar to what they used to do in the 60’s and 70’s during the muscle car war era.
Has America lost its competitive stride? No I don’t believe so. I think that they we have gone sot in too many areas. I think we could take a ew more pages rom the European car handbook than we already are. As long as we produce cars like the Corvette, Z06 and the new ZR1, I think we will be alright in competition. But, we still need to muscle up and advertise the way the companies do in Europe. It would make or a much better car buying experience, and would certainly catch the eye o many new people to certain brands. While the Germans in particular are ighting one another in Europe with their crazy ads, we are over here just watching and waiting or our turn to show them what we have. I the current ads are the best we’ve got, then we might as well pack it in.
-Josh
“Happy Motoring!”
Below are some o the advertising campaigns that the German car makers, along with the British and Japanese ones, came up with in their ights. In the 3 BMW ads with the horse, rog and the rabbit, the caption at the bottom right reads “That’s why we don’t make ront-wheel drives.” This is one o the stabs that BMW made towards Audi, that WD cars, just don’t look or eel right…
Thanks to: Paul Tan, Reddit, Great-Ads, Kuratkull and Boon Doggle or the great ad pictures.
