DRIVER'S SIDE DIATRIBE
By Al Vinikour  

Some of the best commercials on television are those from the domestic and import automakers. Some of the worst commercials are those by the auto industry’s dealers. It’s hard to believe that such polar-opposite talent can be expended for the same industry.                                                                     

First let’s discuss the Pros. Throughout the decades there have been some brilliant and memorable video ads for automobile manufacturers. Who can ever forget the lovable lying sack of crap, Joe Isuzu, who wouldn’t tell the truth if you asked him if his name was Joe Isuzu? His sleaziness made him a cult hero; or Dinah Shore asking you to “See the USA in your Chevrolet?”

How about the end of the ads for the Mercury Cougar where an actual cougar would be sitting atop a Lincoln-Mercury sign wagging his tail like the cute little kitty he really wasn’t? And even the irritating jingle, “Like a Rock?” The ad campaign was stopped just as I was putting the final wires into an explosive device to blow up my television set. I like Bob Seger — but enough already!
 
And what about some of history’s greatest tag lines: “Have you driven a Ford lately;” “GM Mark of Excellence;” Pontiac’s “We Build Excitement;” Mazda’s “Zoom, Zoom;” and “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” just to name a few. But when it comes to dealer advertising, what memories are conjured up? I don’t consider, “Hi, Friends, Ralph Williams here”, or “Z Frank for your Chevrolet” to be them.

Just as an aside, there’s one commercial I saw in 1949 or 1950 that has stuck with me since and will always do so. It was for Courtesy Motors in Chicago (a Hudson dealership) and Jim Moran (your Courtesy Man) was walking out of the showroom during a live commercial, as so many were in those days. As he stepped onto a cable he started to go down, literally.

Seems poor Jim was being electrocuted in real time. Luckily for him somebody had the foresight to shove him so he was free of the cable or else Jim’s new career would have been in real estate. But that commercial really can’t be counted in the points I’m trying to make in this diatribe.
 
The manufacturers and their advertising agencies get a passing grade from me and can go home if they wish. I’m done with them for this week. But for dealers and the agencies that you or somebody in your organization selected, well that’s a different story and a sad one at that.
 
Presumably auto dealers are in business to make money. If that’s the case, and the economy is so questionable, why in Hell would these allegedly smart (and local) businessmen throw away good money on advertising that is so bad that a Marketing 101 class in high school would receive a failing grade if they submitted something that was even better? These people put the “yokel” in “local.” Some of them even work-in kids; their own or probably their girlfriend’s. There’s a place for kids in a car commercial, but it’s sitting in the damned seats and keeping quiet. I don’t need some fourth- grader trying to describe the inner workings of Chrysler’s HVAC system or describing the great deals you can get at Guano Ford.

Take your Game Boy, strap yourself into your rear-seat seat belt and shut the hell up! If the dealer really wants a personal representative so bad then he or she should put up the service manager or the dealership’s top salesman to explain to me why I should consider shopping for an expensive purchase at a particular place.
 
As “professional” as some local car dealers commercials are their graphics agency might as well use stick people and thought bubbles because that’s about how they come across. I’m all for using local talent, but when there doesn’t seem to be any it’s time to go to a different town. Just because the owner of the area’s only Chevy dealer went to high school with Stub Dickman, owner of Stubby’s Discount Tires, Tobacco and Advertising Agency doesn’t mean he has to turn the financial interests of his business over to old Stub.

Sure, Stub will probably get angry and retaliate by stealing the dealer’s wife and poisoning his dog and ferret but we’re talking about something as important as bringing in sales that keeps his dealership thriving and his employees paid. You don’t see Ford Motor Company selecting an agency in Winamac, Indiana, to handle its international advertising, do you?
 
The entire point is this: manufacturers collectively spend billions to garner attention to their products and depend on their local outlets (read dealers) to continue the process and bring in buyers. But when there’s such a huge professional drop-off from national advertising to those at the dealer level it can’t help but send a subliminal message to potential buyers that if dealers piss away money on such dreck (as my people say) then what else are they not paying attention to? The adage, “You get what you pay for” is older than Betty White, but it will never be obsolete.