Autoblog

The Catch-22 with advertising these days is that someone will undoubtedly be offended if your campaign is clever enough to be memorable. Ford of Canada came up with such an effort for the Escape, showing the CUV wearing a bumper sticker with the phrase "drive it like you stole it," and the tagline "Built for life in Manitoba." Innocuous enough, you say? Apparently not.

We can't say for sure if it's just people looking for things to get offended over, or if Canadians are just hypersensitive to Manitoba's reputation as a car theft hotspot. Either way, Ford has responded to the politically correct whining and pulled the ad while offering copious apologies. While car theft and traffic accidents are no laughing matter, especially when innocent people are tragically injured, you can't blame a car advertising campaign that uses an exceedingly common phrase for inducing an already rampant problem. We fail to see how people commiting criminal acts have anything to do with the automaker's sales efforts. Certainly, the message sent by the advertisement is that the Escape is tough enough for Canada, not that it's the car of choice for boosting. It'd be nice to see a company under unreasonable fire just offer up something like "whatevs, get a thicker skin." It's advertising, after all, not the cure for cancer. Of course, it would also have been easy enough to say "Drive it like you hate it" and send largely the same message.

Thanks for the tip, Richard!

[Source: CBC]

England's Education Secretary Alan Johnson has published a list of tomes intended to catch the interest of teenage boys. Monies have been set aside so that schools can take their pick of 20 titles from the 160 book list, and house those selections in their libraries. Absent from the register are works considered classic, such as Dickens, Shakespeare, or others from literary history. High on the new list is "I Know You Got Soul" by Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson's book, rather than being total fluff, celebrates elegant engineering and design work covering everything from Ferraris to the Hoover Dam. Clarkson delves into the history behind some of his favorite machines, and we would have gladly traded the Car Craft hiding in the leaves of our literature textbooks for Clarkson's work. As such, we fail to see how presenting history and engineering in an engaging manner is going to harm students.

[Source: Daily Mail]

Aw hell, here we go again. Hyundai is pulling its spot called "Restless" after the Advertising Standards Bureau of Australia banned it. The ad, which appeals to people's warm, gooey centers by adultifying toddlers, shows a baby snatching the keys to the Santa Fe and hitting the highway. Along the way, he picks up a girl who happens to be hitching to the beach. He surfs, she watches, world hunger and strife are nearly wiped out in the span of sixty seconds. It's a great spot and was voted the most popular ad in New Zealand last year (what a dubious distinction!)

The ASB argues that the ad shows illegal activity (and there's nothing else on TV that shows illegal stuff?), and may entice youngsters into copycat behavior. Right. Like nobody in the history of the car ever had a kid yank the controls before this ad suggested it? Kids love to pretend like they're adults, so you can be sure that if you plop your toddler in the driver's seat, they're going to have a grand old time. Not that there's much watchable content on television anymore, but these situations go beyond the ridiculous and will just lead to more whitewashed, mamby-pamby crap for us to have to sit through. What's next, banning talking animal spots because no animal really talks? Come on people! There's got to be a more fulfilling pursuit than getting all wadded up over an ad - this is one of the most harmless, charming spots we've seen in a while.

We just don't get it, but apparently there's a large contingent out there who yearns to be protected from themselves. Life is no fun if you don't collect a few bumps and scrapes. Yes, I drove mom's '68 Rambler into the garage and out into the street a couple times as a kid. I couldn't help it - that column shift was just asking for it!

Thanks for the tip, Anton!

Check out the spot after the jump

[Source: duncans.tv]

Volkswagen has the spine that GM hasn't shown recently to overly touchy advocacy groups. No stranger to commercials that spark conversation, the company has no plans to pull a new commercial that shows a suicidal jumper change his mind on a ledge after learning there are now three V-dubs available under $17,000. This time it's Suicide Prevention Network USA that has lobbied Volkswagen directly to reconsider airing the commercial titled "Jumper." GM's new buddies, the American Federation for Suicide Prevention, along with the American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness have also piled on in the effort to remove any vestige of humor, personality or edge from advertising. VW should have run a spot with someone getting their teeth kicked in if they wanted to avoid controversy.

Thanks for the tip, Jay!

[Source: USA Today]

What with the pulling of the Snickers Superbowl spot and now this uproar, it's getting to the point where you can't say anything. Seriously, do these people look for ways to be offended? The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention has called for General Motors to pull the spot where a depressed, laid-off robot ultimately jumps off a bridge. The group also wants the spot scrubbed from the GM website and restrictions on video sharing sites like YouTube from posting the ad. Finally, the AFSP has requested an apology from GM and would like the automaker make efforts to inform the public about mental illness and suicide (translation: they want a donation from GM). WHAT!? Newsflash: General Motors is in the car business. It seems to us that the AFSP is the proper body to be working toward informing and educating the public about their cause.

This is like watching relatives come out of the woodwork when someone wins the lottery. We sincerely hope that GM's got the intestinal fortitude to stand firm against this type of brazen, outstretched-hand whining. Attempting to go digging into the pocket of General Motors does little to help further the cause of the suicide-prevention group. In fact, looking for money makes the group appear less credible. We'd rather see some robots jumping to their end than any actual humans laid off by the automakers. Of course, suicide is not funny, but there is a certain amount of dark humor that infuses the American Psyche, and the commercial's presentation was done in the most tongue-in-cheek manner. How can you take anything narrated by Don LaFontaine's "theater trailer voice" and with "all by myself" as a soundtrack seriously? We understand where the group is coming from, but it's totally out of line to be asking GM for some kind of underwriting because of a humorous tv ad. We haven't heard the AFSP making any noise about the rampant portryal of hara-kiri and other violence on other shows (heck, there was a bloody suicide on ER just last week!). Nor have we heard an uproar over other commercials aired during the Super Bowl that contained suicide themes. Both Washington Mutual and Career Builder aired such spots. In the end, it's a robot! We weren't aware that Antropomorphs are people, too.

[Source: AdAge]