Best and Worst Car Ads of 2008

There is so much incredibly bad car advertising out there that it’s difficult to choose the year’s worst. Good car ads, on the other hand, are rare. I think that’s because car ads depend on formulas, no matter what the medium. Local TV spots have some clown, often the owner, shilling product at top volume. Display ads in the Sunday papers all look pretty much alike.

The ad agency I once owned got hired by a local Mercedes dealer to produce “something new, something creative” for his print advertising. We did and got fired in a month.

The Worst
So car ads have become kind of a joke in some quarters. But it’s always fun to see what new lows dealers and manufacturers have reached. You probably have already made your own choices, but here are mine.

Honoring Volkswagen for by far the worst, most tasteless ad ever:

Honoring purveyors of car insurance everywhere:

And for your basic jingoistic, defend-America-against-the-Japs approach, the award goes to O.C. Welch:

Truck and car wraps have become a new medium for exploiting tasteless in-your-space advertising. Some of the worst offenders can be seen here.

Now, for the Best
Undoubtedly, the best manufacturer’s ads came from Cadillac for the CTS. Their ads for the Escalade, on the other hand, were almost as macho-silly as the concept of a hybrid 6,000-lb. vehicle is foolish. Anyway, you’ve all seen the CTS ads. Here’s some footage that shows their agency knows how to shoot car ads:

For the best classified ad I’ve seen, you’ve got to check out this Audi .

If you’ve seen best or worst that beat these, hit us up with a comment and a link. Happy New Year as we continue naively to look forward to better car ads.

—jgoods

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