The Civic: The official Car of Horny Ninjas!

Toyota, Nissan, and Honda normal don't bring up the fact that they are Japanese companies in their ads. If they mention geography at all it is normally to focus on the fact that most of the vehicles they sell in America  are actually built in the southern United States.*

But this Honda ad features Japanese stuff out the ass. It starts what appears to be the slightly older Japanse version of "Hit Girl", is clearly is supposed to take place in Japan, has the main character go to a video game arcade, which I guess must still be popular in Japan but died out in America before the Play Station 2 had even come out. The ad even has those crazy customized "Art" trucks that are a thing in Japan but exist nowhere else, ever.

Over top all of this a girl group sings "I'm a Ninja! I'm a HORNY Ninja!" over and over again. If someone tried to make a safe-for-TV tourist ad for Japan based solely on reading the Cracked.com topics page about Japan, this would probably be the result.



In Summery: I have watched this commercial 4 times now, and my main reaction still is: "What the fuck just happened?"


Footnote(s):
*Which I would like to take the time to as quickly as possible point out that numerous foreign cars made in american these days makes these companies responsible for as many american factory jobs as GM or Chrysler, who make almost all of their parts overseas at this point and just ship them to Detroit so they can stamp "Assembled in the USA" on their cars.

Many of the best selling GM and Chrysler models are actually made in Mexico and Canada these days (the canadian government ownes 10 percent of Chrysler because they gave a bunch of money to its bailout because it has so many factories in Canada.)

I'm not against overseas manufacturing, I just think its funny when people talk about "buying American" without doing the research into where their car is actually being made. Read this USA Today article if you want more info on this. Sorry to get serious for a minute. Here is the Monty Python Fish Slapping Dance to lighten the mood:

Auto Show Part III: In Search of Spock

I was really curious about what Toyota's pitch to the auto show attendees would be, In April around the time of the show they had just been given the largest fine ever given to an automaker by the U.S. Government. Toyota at the show went with the approach employed by the Pirate Captain in The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists and just ignored the problem and carried on as if they were still every person over 40's vehicle of choice (This is not a stereotype, Toyota's average owner's age as of a few years ago was 43).

Their section consisted of the usual auto show assortment of rotating displays, and bad actresses in business suits over enthusiastically telling you how purchasing the car behind them will solve all of your life's problems. There was one thing they did differently though. Near the end of one of the be-suited failed actresses speeches, she pitched people on going over to the Toyota Avalon display to watch the next person stand in front of a car and talk about it. But, apparently the next Avalon display was a little different. The Avalon display was not a display at all, as the women informed anyone in earshot, it was a lounge.

How was this circular area with a rotating car in it a lounge you may ask? Well apparently it had some black pleather seats in it that looked like the kind of furniture that a propaganda video made in the mid-1970's by the U.S.S.R. might have used to represent bourgeoisie Americans in a Jazz club decadently listening to "hip" American music. But fear not, Toyota decided to show that were not out of touch by providing a hip band to play background music in their "Avalon Lounge."

And while live music was a nice touch and definitely caused them to stand out from the other displays, Toyota choice a really stuffy string quartet whose last gig was probably the New Years party held by Christopher Walken in the movie Batman Returns, which you could tell was hip, because Walken was dressed like this:(Walken was technically playing a character named Max Shreck, but was really playing Christopher Walken. Actually specifically he was playing the same version of Christopher Walken he played in A View to a Kill, where his name was Max Zoran, which i think we can all agree is a much better name than Shreck. And not just because Shreck is only one letter away from Shrek. Though I'm sure thats a part of it. Those last four sentences were apparently written by Andy Rooney. Cracked has a whole article about Walken ripping himself off.)

So yeah, Toyota isn't exactly trying trying change their image as the official car of middle aged accountants. And maybe with the current turmoil they face over transparency and reliability, that is a good thing.

(Before we move on This might be a good time to explain that I don't have any pictures of the Avalon Lounge because I kept falling asleep trying to take them. (you see because the display was boring. Rim Shot.)

But Scion, the brand they created specifically to appeal to young people must have had an uber-hip display right? Actually it came across much more like the pensioner who designed the Avalon Lounge was asked about what the young people were into. And he had once watched the ads during an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with his grandson during the late 1980's. The designer/Ginkgo biloba enthusiast had seen an ad for mircomachines and decided that they were what all the cool kids were into. So he had them build a micromachines playset to store Scions in. Except because Toyota's display designers were involved, they decided to take this idea and make it more boring then you ever thought imaginable. Which is how, one assumes, they created this display:


Cars! Stacked up vertically, a little bit! with some projection screens! This is what the kids want! Those kids with their skate boarding and their hip-ity hop, and their wireless telegraphs!

Breaking News: the long promised auto show follow up

Yes only a month after it occurred I'm finally posting some more about the advertising awesomeness and foolishness at the 2010 New York Auto Show. This blog is nothing if not punctual.

Part of the display for Mini consisted of two Minis being restrained, one with a leather dog leash and the other with a thick rope.
When I first say these the only thing I could think of for the Mini in the leather collar was the Mini was trying to appeal to bondage enthusists.

The one with the rope around it, especially with the leather collared Mini already establishing that that part of the Mini was supposed to be the neck, made me think Mini was showing one of their criminal cars being hung at the gallows.

Obviously neither of these impressions are what Mini was going for. In terms of the "gimp Mini" I'm sure that's just me being dirty, but I think the mini with the noose might actually give that impression to people besides me.

Mini cleared things up with slogans explaining each design on the ground on the side of each display, which you can see partially in the above photos. The Mini with the studded dog collar said, "Please Do Not Feed" and one with the rope said "172 Horses Packed into a Pint Sized Corral." The Horses slogan is particularly clever with its horse power pun. Reading the slogans the viewer garners that since mini put a dog collar and leash on the mini that was supposed to be a dog, they wanted to put something horse related on the mini with the horse slogan. I guess putting a really big saddle on the mini would have not shown off the car's looks as well, but i have been thinking about the display for a while know and it just dawned on me that the rope is supposed to be a lasso. Maybe I'm just exceptionally think, but I think even with the horse analogy the rope still doesn't scream "lasso." And I think a rope with a slip knot in that is mounted vertically high above the object it is around is much more associated with a hanging than it is with horses. Maybe they were originally gonna go with a slogan like, "Judge Roy Bean ordered this outlaw car be hung by the neck until its fight stop a-kickin" but then realized that was a bad idea and back tracked with the rope being a lasso.

So creative ads, but not in the ballpark of the clever magazine ads mini has had since their debut, such as fake parking tickets to give people's cars which compliment their car on being cool, and their ad with suggestions about what to paint on the white top of your Mini.

I couldn't find either of those ads I just mentioned by google searching, but I did find this ad, which isn't quite as clever but gives you an idea of Mini's print ad design scheme.



Mini ads with their black backgrounds and minimalist approach make Mini one of only two car companies I can think of that has had a recognizable template for their ads for as long as I can remember. Indeed the only other company I can of that has ads as recognizable for their layout is Porche.