Well, This Is What I Think

I have recently been blogging about everything from gun control to healthy brains, not to mention my daughter’s brilliant success at Uni, and someone kindly said “Yolly, we miss you fulminating on advertising”. Fair enuf, too, it is what I have spent 25 years doing, so here goes.

This is a series of billboards done by General Motors in Detroit for the Chevy brand. I don’t know who created them, (and will gladly post a credit if someone does) but they are uniformly good-excellent, and some are simply brilliant. I am indebted to my good friend David Rayner of Rare Spares who helps people feed their obsession with all things beautiful and automotive and old for sending them to me.

So why are these ads so good, Mister Car Marketing Manager? Listen and all will be revealed.

• They are inherently interesting and relevant to their target audience.
• They engage the audience’s intelligence and humour.
• They have balls. They stand for something.
• Last but by no means least, they are unmissable – not bland. Ergo, they obey the first rule of advertising, which is, of course, “Be noticed.” One of the Seven Rules of Effective Advertising and Marketing which everyone needs to know. (Just click on the 7 Rules button.)

So without further ado, enjoy.

And just to prove that I am as egotistical as the next man, there’s a link to a brochure for Holden Special Vehicles at the end, created many years ago now, when I was working with Peter Smart and Mike Allen at Magnum Opus Advertising.

I especially love a couple of lines in the brochure (which with its dense format is really one for muscle car enthusiasts, but it’s in this article to show how great copy can be long copy, too – remember: it’s all about the audience).

OK, just imagine if Holden in Australia ran an ad like this today – it’s about a brand not a vehicle, or (please note) an offer on price – anyhow, on we go.

Lovely stuff. Which is your favourite? I think mine is “Remember the wind blowing through your hair. Remember hair?” Very clever audience targeting, yet it works for all age groups, who will instantly “get” the ad. Brave advertising, too.

And if you’re up for it, here’s the HSV brochure link.

OK, while I’m big upping myself and past colleagues, about an hour’s hunting found this, too. Reducing everything you could possibly say about a car to, essentially, one invented word and a logo. Now that’s balls.

I think these were computer desktop downloads – man, was offering those hi-tech or what back then? I am still hunting for the actual billboard art that ran on Kingsway in the middle of Melbourne and will add it if I can find it, but it was more than ten years ago …

Neat, huh? Sold a lot of cars, too.