I’ve always been a big fan of cars and motorcycles, coming in somewhere on the Steve McQueen/Jeremy Clarkson end of the spectrum, and I’ve liked a lot of BMW’s.
But their latest ad just really doesn’t work for me:
The problem is that it’s mixing two things badly, and comes across as incredibly patronising: ‘at BMW we make Joy’. No you don’t – you make cars and motorcycles which can evoke feelings of anything from happiness to sadness depending on the person, the situation and millions of other factors. I’ll choose whether I feel joy when someone in a BMW repmobile cuts me up.
And showing people enjoying your product only works if they are real people, and look like real people. I don’t share a lot of emotions with a hired actor from LA being towed in a car on the back of a truck for a morning.
Compare it with a car advert I love:
Now this inspires me to feel joy, because they let me recognise the icons I identify with from their range, the song is about chasing an impossible dream rather than assuming they’ve achieved it, and because their main character is a balding, mutton-chopped 70′s loon, rather than a perfectly groomed extra.
