Ordinary Advertising

Can someone please tell me what in the Dickenschmidt is going on with German car advertising these days. For decades it was a showcase of extraordinary advertising, but lately it looks more like a meat case of automotive advertising at its wurst. (Okay, enough with the German gags.) But seriously, this flyweight of a BMW ad you see here is just the latest in a series of new lows for this marque.

Years ago, BMW advertising was subject to a number of screens. The guys running the creative, either Tom Thomas or Joe O’Neill (and ultimately Marty Puris), would take a look at all the work that had been developed. If something was a good idea, it might make it as a co-op ad or a subhead in one of the brand’s brochures (back when integrated marketing just happened instead of being constantly touted as the new, new thing). If it was a really good idea, it got elevated to being a DAG ad. (”Dealer Advertising Group” for the uninitiated.) And only if it was a truly extraordinary ad did it make it to the national arena. (What can I say, there was a sale of italics this week.)

Needless to say, this puppy would barely have made it as a bumper sticker.

Interestingly, it was Marty Puris himself who first introduced me to the notion that “it takes ten years to build a reputation and ten years to lose it.” He wasn’t talking about BMW, but he might as well have been. From what I hear, the cars are still terrific. But the U.S. economy sure isn’t. Which would seem to make this a spectacularly bad time for BMW to just coast along. Persistence of memory will only get you so far–unless you’re a painting by Dali.

Then, just down the autobahn is another brand–fabled both for its product and its historical advertising–Porsche. Still the darling of the “so what if my athletic cup doesn’t runneth over and I’m 50+, the HVAC company I own cleared $1.7MM last year” set, what inspired them to go with with this genealogy scheiss? Even I know the Cayenne is a Porsche (and my HVAC company didn’t do nearly that well last year). Porsche still makes great cars. Now they just need to get their advertising back in gear.

And finally, there’s the doyenne of them all: Mercedes. It persists in running this ad upon which I’ve heaped much opprobrium in the past. I know they make wonderful cars. Enough so that I continue to put up with what those Vandals and Visogoths charge me to do the routine maintenance on one. But I’m already a “customer for life”, a cherished specimen the folks in Stuttgart are going to find in dwindling supply if this is the best they can do.