Okay. I admit it. For a year and a half, I created ads for car dealerships.
It’s funny. When I began writing and directing car ads, I quickly discovered that there are reasons that most car dealers have ads that…how can I put this delicately…um…bite.
First of all, the budget for car ads is about $300. That covers talent, videography, post-production, and everything from script to screen. That’s not much money, and it doesn’t allow for much in the way of wiggle room for talent, props, sets, or anything else.
Next, let’s add to this mix the fact that most car dealers want to use their sales staff in the commercials. It’s been my experience that most sales reps aren’t really comfortable in front of the camera. And it shows. Lastly, lets examine the “we’ve always done it this way” phenonmenon as it applies to car ads. The industry mantra is that the manufacturer sells the car, the dealer association sells the promotion, and the dealer sells the deal. That’s why you see dealers running ads that show one or more vehicles with payments or “off-MSRP” pricing, instead of ads that try to convince you why you should deal with a specific dealer. [Read more…] about Confessions of a Car Dealer Advertiser.
For a media guy, I don’t really watch a lot of TV. When I was a kid, I did. LOTS of TV. In fact, my folks told me that my first word wasn’t “Mama” or “Dada,” but “Popeye.” They also told me that I used to run out of the room when the programs were on, and run back in to watch the commercials. Frankly, they thought I was nuts. As an adult, I’ve learned that the average network 30 second spot has the same budget as a 30 MINUTE television sit-com. Think about that. second for second, the commercial has better acting, much better special effects, better writing, frequently better story lines, and better directing. I’m afraid, though, that television is changing, and the way advertising works (or doesn’t work) is changing, too. Let me explain… 
Most things work in cycles, like the swinging of a pendulm. Hemlines go up and hemlines go down. Pants legs go from flares to straight and back again. The country swings towards liberalism and back to conservative values. Some cycles take longer than many people observe in their lifetimes. To understand those cycles, we must study history. For instance, did you know that there have been several periods in American history where the two sides were as polarized (if not MORE polarized) as they are today? There are periods in our past where politics were even more nasty than what we see today – with more dirty tricks than Watergate, with more scandals than the Clinton era, and with more bile than a Howard Dean speech. 
