is having some pointed fun with its featuring the called “2012,” only the fun is pointed directly at , which finds it a little too sharp to be all that much fun. So on the eve of the big game, Ford sent Chevy a cease-and-desist letter to pull the ad and “pressured” NBC not to run the commercial, according to a report on blog. Chevy has released a statement in response, which you can read , indicating that the ad will run despite Ford’s protest.
Ford found no reason to chuckle at some of the commercial’s claims, “particularly around durability.” One in particular comes from a character that says of their now-deceased, F-150-driving pal, “Dave didn’t drive the longest-lasting most dependable truck on the road. Dave drove a Ford.”
Ford spokesman Mike Levine says his company has more trucks with 250,000-plus miles on the road than any other brand, which would appear to contradict the small print that appears in the “2012″ ad that reads, “Dependability based on longevity: 1981-2011 full-size pickup registrations.” Ford says its lawyers will decide what to do (if anything) after the ad airs during tonight’s game, but Chevy’s legal minions must have vetted the spot closely well before time.
Or Ford could take Chevy marketing honcho Joel Ewanick up on his offer and bide its time. Said Ewanick, “We can wait until the world ends, and if we need to, we will apologize.”
If we had to pick a Super Bowl advertising shtick that we’re most susceptible to, it might just be . Especially if they are driving cars.
But this is one ad campaign you won’t actually see during the Super Bowl. Subaru will be holding its second annual Subaru Game Day Dog Walk instead, wherein owners pledge on Facebook to, well, walk their dogs. While we don’t really want to think about what would happen if they didn’t, Subaru sees value in appealing to animal lovers. Some 70 percent of Subaru drivers are pet owners, according to the company.
Subaru has also launched two social networking app as part of its marketing effort: Dogbook for Facebook and MapMyDOGWALK.
Do we even need mention that this is a brand that shares a nickname with a TV cartoon dog?
Last year, made a big splash in the advertising world with its “Imported From Detroit” campaign, a marketing blitz that kicked off with a Super Bowl spot featuring rapper Eminem behind the wheel of a . The campaign jumpstarted a national dialogue about Detroit, went on to win an Emmy, and the tagline has since become a cornerstone of Chrysler’s marketing efforts. But according to The Wall Street Journal, the Auburn Hills automaker isn’t looking to return to The Big Game with Marshall Mathers – it’s going with veteran actor Clint Eastwood.
According to the WSJ, Eastwood will feature in an expansive two-minute long ad and the action will likely center on the actor “giving the country a pep talk.” While seemingly every other automaker has already spilled the beans on their Super Bowl marketing efforts, the Pentastar is playing its hand close to the vest, with the WSJ unable to get Chrysler to comment on the story.
continues its onslaught of Super Bowl ads released before this Sunday’s big game, clearly hoping that volume plays in its favor when the points are tallied by marketing analysts on Monday.
Today’s commercial, entitled “2012,” stars the in a post-apocalyptic world. In this ad, Chevy reminds us of its oft-repeated statistic that its trucks are the longest lasting, most dependable trucks on the road, and it does so by imagining that the Mayans were right and that 2012 is our last year on Earth.
It’s a well-done spot with lots of fun things to focus on – we’re even amused by the soundtrack, which isn’t what we’d immediately expect to hear as the backing music following life after an Extinction Level Event.
to view the end of the world through Chevy’s eyes.
A Minnesota man recently found himself too intoxicated to safely operate a Zamboni. Witnesses allege the 39-year-old man was weaving across the rink and smacked into the boards after a PeeWee C game. The rink attendant retreated back into the garage as coaches ushered players and fans away from the scene. By the time the driver parked the Zamboni, authorities were waiting for him. He then failed sobriety tests and was taken to police headquarters for a blood-alcohol test, according to The Duluth News Tribune. The wayward Zamboni operator has not been formally charged, though he was convicted of drunk driving once in 2002 and twice in 1999.
Parents took to the ice themselves to smooth out the rough spots so that the PeeWee A league could play their game.
Minnesota law is a bit murky on whether or not the man could be charged with drunk driving. The state has seen convictions for people driving under the influence on both a motorized recliner and a tractor, though the state’s Court of Appeals recently ruled one can whirr about on a motorized scooter while three sheets to the wind without raising the ire of local law enforcement officers.
has been spending big on Super Bowl advertising for a few years now, but its commercials have been hit or miss. Its ad for the big game in 2010 entitled “” was a hit for bringing toys from our childhood to life behind the wheel of a , but last year’s “” was a definite miss. Kia’s ad for this year’s Super Bowl, called “A Dream Car. For Real Life,” will likely be a hit.
The premise is simple: A fairy who visits bedsides with magic dust that guarantees good dreams accidentally trips over a slipper and spills his whole bucket of sprinkles on an unsuspecting, demographically targeted and non-threateningly handsome 30-something man. The resulting indulgent dream stars Victoria’s Secret model Adriana Lima, 80’s hair band Mötley Crüe (looking a little worse for wear, we might add) and UFC fighter Chuck Liddell. There’s also a school bus-sized sub sandwich being cut in half by lumberjacks and a roaring crowd of thousands of bikini-wearing beauties.
In the midst of all this REM-induced revelry is the , because what other car would your subconscious pick to impress Ms. Lima?
Kia has also published a five-hour-longvideo of Adriana Lima waving a checkered flag in slow motion on YouTube, because hey, if you’ve got her on set for the day, why not? to watch them both.
It shouldn’t be surprising that, during the Super Bowl, the biggest single U.S. sporting event, automotive and beer companies spend the most on advertising. What might surprise you – before you give a thought to your Super Bowl diet – is the fifth biggest advertiser: tortilla chips. Ratings agency Nielsen broke down the advertising numbers over the past five Super Bowls and found that automakers cumulatively spent $172.2 million, versus beer companies investment of $126.9 million over the same period.
The increased cost of Big Game ads, even against a backdrop of decreasing first-quarter primetime advertising, hasn’t slowed anything down. The cost of Super Bowl ads rose nearly 40 percent from 2007 to 20011 (to $3,100,000 on average) while primetime television advertising in the first three months of the year dropped nearly 10 percent to $96,807.
But as will tell you, you just can’t beat a huge global audience: it’s ad last year had 119,628,000 viewers, making it the most watched ad of all time, according to Nielsen. for more details on Nielsen’s breakdown.
The next will be chock-full of standard and optional technology features, but its all-new Modular Infotainment System has the potential to set a new benchmark for both high-end and entry-level navigation, entertainment and connectivity.
Three new systems will be available when the 2013 Golf goes on sale in Europe towards the end of this year, starting with a five-inch touchscreen and moving up to a 5.8-inch unit and finally a range-topping eight-inch system. Each unit will be equipped with a capacitive touchscreen, with the eight-inch version packing an 800×450 resolution screen, multitouch functionality and set to debut in future models, including the next . Making use of that high-powered chipset will be revamped 3D graphics for menus and mapping, with free nav updates available for three years and the ability to activate additional features after the initial vehicle purchase.
Handwriting recognition will also be included in the system, much like the system , which will allow users to skip the soft keyboard and write out destinations and point-of-interest searches. Additionally, VW is looking to include MirrorLink functionality (which essentially mirrors your phone’s screen on the navigation display), as expected, Internet-connectivity through smartphone tethering will be an option, along with the ability to create a WLAN hotspot.
Finally, tells Autoblog it plans to integrate proximity sensors into the head unit – similar to system – switching over from “display mode” to “operating mode” when it detects the driver or passenger’s hand moving towards the screen. The proximity sensors could also detect which side of the screen your hand is placed and then highlight specific features for easier selection.
Naturally, pricing for each system won’t be released until the Golf goes on sale in Europe this fall and hits the U.S. sometime in 2013, but VW representatives made it clear that these systems will be priced aggressively in order to compete with other feature-rich competitors.
has released an extended version of its Super Bowl ad ahead of the Big Game, and it may not be what you expected. While the automaker’s teaser hinted toward yet another Star Wars-themed spot after the success of last year’s “,” the new commercial focuses instead on a pudgy puppy named Bolt. The advertisement’s tagline is “Back and better than ever,” and Bolt enters into a fitness montage set to some excellent James Brown tunes in order to slim down and chase after the .
There isn’t a single Star Wars reference throughout the whole clip, which may leave fans wondering exactly what that whole to the Empire’s theme in the Volkswagen teaser was about. We won’t spoil the twist for you, but we will say the 2012 Super Bowl ad heads toward a wretched hive of scum and villainy pretty quickly. for the video, as well as the full press release.
The has been busy lately – taking part in a host of adventurous activities like , , , and making a musicvideo. We’ve seen snippets of a lot of the extreme sports activities the Sonic hatch has been involved in, but we have yet to see the music video for OK Go and its song “Needing/Getting.” Chevy has just released a teaser to whet our appetites, however, as well as its latest full-length Sonic ad for the Super Bowl, both of which you can view .
The 60-second extreme sports spot is part of an onslaught of before and during the game, and at least four of the brand’s ads will be devoted to the Sonic. to check out the new spot called “Stunt Anthem,” and if you like the song in the ad – The Fun’s “We Are Young” – .
has a redesigned that it truly believes can compete with the likes of the and . So it’s going where the eyeballs are with , ponying up for the brand’s first-ever Super Bowl ad. Lexus’ commercial is just a 30-second spot, joining the likes of Acura, , Cadillac and other brands buying time during the big game.
Lexus is calling its ad, “The Beast,” which calls to mind both and the . The actual spot, however, has a rather hackneyed sci-fi theme: A GS350 is locked up in a shipping container sized cage in a lab, and uses its new “Lexus spindle grille” to break free in a destructive orgy of CGI.
A few months ago, Steve Shannon, vice president of marketing at said the brand would to the game, instead of focusing just on features, and with this peppy quip: “We’re making Super Bowl spots. We need to get that headset on. The bar is high.”
The first three ads are, and in one of them, “All for One,” a designer needs a little extra support getting a job done. He gets it from his coworkers. And plant workers at Hyundai’s Montgomery, Alabama facility. And Rocky. to check that one out along with “Cheetah” (pictured) that features the and “Think Fast,” which introduces the revamped You’ll also find the press release describing Hyundai’s Super Bowl gameplan and find link links to watch the behind-the-scenes videos for each, as well.
isn’t typically one to dive into the Super Bowl advertising fracus with splashy spots, so when the company anonymously teased us with a quick clip of Matthew Broderick reprising his role from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, our eyebrows did a little dance. Now the company has dropped a full-length ad on the web, and it features Broderick skipping his acting duties for a little frolicking about in the city. The spot features more than a few classic Ferris Bueller lines (though nitpickers will note that some of them are a little off), and while it’s well put-together, seeing the star take to the wheel of a instead of a is a crushing reminder of our own mortality.
Still, we like Honda’s crack at half-time advertising a good bit more than the previously released (though not more than the clever spot that’s presently circulating televisions nationwide). to take in Honda’s spot before the big game, and be sure to keep a steady out for the various ‘easter eggs.’
You know those commercials that we never get, the ones aired in distant lands like Australia and Brazil and that are, oh, interesting? We’re finally getting one. Toyota is returning to Super Bowl advertising after a three-year hiatus with a 30-second version of this longer-form 60-second spot for the , and we think it’s amusing enough to be worthy of The Big Game.
This is a continuation of introduced in the first 2012 ad last year, and this commercial adds some comedy, a welcome change from Toyota’s typically sober marketing campaigns. Toyota will also air a second 30-second spot during the NFL’s championship game. Check it out in long form (along with the official press release) .
It’s the two-minute warning in terms of Super Bowl advertising and still has some ground to cover. General Motors’ largest brand is still mulling its advertising lineup with less than two weeks remaining until the New York Giants and New England Patriots meet in the big game.
Chevrolet has purchased seven spots. Exactly which vehicles will be featured and at what times is still stirring healthy debate at GM headquarters.
“Every day, we’re changing the spots of what’s running where,” said Chris Perry, Chevrolet’s vice president of global marketing and strategy. “We’re probably going to push it to the end.”
That comes Tuesday, Jan. 31 when NBC wants final decisions. Click to continue reading.
Remember when the dot-com ads started to flood the airwaves during the Super Bowl? The ads were almost always wacky, and half the time, we didn’t even know what was being sold. Well, it’s been a long time since the 1990s, and very few Internet-based companies are still hocking services during The Big Game.
Cars.com is one of the WiFi warriors that is still swinging for the fences, and some of their has been reasonably funny. Their 2012 ad is all about using Cars.com to gain confidence at the dealership, but we’re not sure what to think about it. There is something about a man with a freaky second head that doesn’t sit well with us, and we like it even less when noggin part deux is intentionally obnoxious. Seriously, we could do without the gyrating, it’s creeping us out. to preview the 30-second ad for yourself.
apparently couldn’t wait until the Super Bowl to show off the ad it will run during the Big Game. The German automaker has released its spot, and sure enough, the quick clip has cashed in on the current vampire craze. The commercial features a clutch of gen x/y/millennial 20-something vamps out for an impromptu fireside party. When their hero arrives in an Audi S7 with an extra cooler of O Negative, disaster ensues. At least the company chose an excellent soundtrack. The whole drama plays out under the silky tones of Echo & The Bunnymen’s “Killing Moon.”
Audi unveiled the spot mere days after teasing its Super Bowl ad after Facebook fans beat the company’s Race The Light game on the social network.
We have to say, we’re a little underwhelmed by the spot. Audi is on an undeniable roll right now with products like the and littering showrooms across the country, so it’s a bit sad that this was the best feature they could muster to highlight in a Super Bowl commercial. to see the spot for yourself.
We’ve entered a new age of advertising, friends. One where manufacturers gleefully shill for their own ads instead of actual products. We’ve seen it with the teaser as for the Super Bowl spot, and now has jumped into the game. It’s Inception gone marketing – an ad within an ad. In order to get us all fired up for the commercial to come, Audi has unveiled a teaser that features some of the best moments from the company’s Super Bowl marketing past as well as a quick glimpse of what we can expect from this year’s high-budget number.
From the looks of things, the commercial will feature everyone’s favorite creature of the night: vampires. We’re not sure how we can possibly contain our anticipation. Or something. to check out the commercial for a commercial for yourself.
is plugging a gap in its model line by adding a T5 AWD model, according to a report from . As it stands, if you want all-wheel drive with your S60 you need $39,325 for the T6 just to get in the game, and only then you can you start throwing options at it. The all-wheel-drive competition is easier on the wallet: an Quattro begins at $34,175 and the xDrive starts at $37,475.
Pricing hasn’t been released, but the expectation is that the S60 T5 AWD will sticker somewhere between the $32,175 front-wheel-drive model and the T6. It is expected to go on sale this summer.
The marketing shenanigans continue under the rubric of “Let’s Do This,” this time with a five-story 3D projection of a claw game on the side of The Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles. In fact, that a couple of Sunset Boulevard’s lanes had to be shut down to accommodate the controls, which were a waist-high gearshift and an acclerator pedal.
So big was the PR stunt that it earned Chevrolet a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the mightiest claw game on Earth. to see it in action and to watch someone win a non-projected, very real, Chevy Sonic.
