Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Auto Styling News: AD WATCH - Fiat 500 Strikes Out with Confusing "Baby" Ad.

AD WATCH: Fiat 500
There's no question that the FIAT 500 is a cute car. But the advertising for this vehicle leaves me scratching my head.

The early 500 ads featuring Jennifer Lopez were perplexing enough - and they drew fire because she was actually filmed on a movie set while her "block" back in New York City was filmed separately (a common tactic, but it didn't translate well, and created a backlash and swamped the message of the ad when it premiered.) Still, the idea that this is a slick little women's car was drilled into the viewers of this nicely produced ad.

Then there's this recent one. Take a look.



Two guys are headed to the game. The driver of the 500 picks up his buddy, and his buddy's kid. "It was girls night out," he says, apologetically.

He and the baby are shown in the next shot being driven to the game, only to come up behind a (nice, sweet, classic, bitchin') late 1960s Chrysler Imperial driven by an old man. Slowly.

The baby stares down the old driver as they pull up beside it, and shouts in Italian "What are you lookin' at?" Problem #1: there is no translation , and I relied on others to give me that verbiage.

Problem #2: Is that really funny? Inasmuch as the well-known E*Trade baby is funny (and that joke has grown stale after, what, five Superbowls? The latest showed a baby "speed dating" other babies. Ew.)

The bigger problem for me is that the guy is emasculated by his wife, and the other guy drives a car aimed at a female demographic. In fact, the entire ad seems cleverly aimed at women, despite the two men. (The baby is the give-away.)

This ad follows on the heels of the FIAT 500 Abarth ad in which a rather stereotypical Italian woman (representing the car) sexually toys with a man and, in the end, slaps him. Note to FIAT: Men, like women, don't like to be slapped. Especially in public.

But this ad also suffers from other issues. There's so much going on in the ad, it's hard to focus on the car's features. The guy says (of the tickets to the sporting venue) "These are nice seats," but shouldn't he be focusing on the seats in the car? We do get glimpses of the vehicle, of course, and it's not an ugly car. The shifter gets a half-second close-up, and it's quite attractive, as is the speedometer, which is shown for the one second the car is slowing down behind the Chrysler. I'm sure the rest of the car is nice, too. We just don't get to see much of it in this confusing ad.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bentley EXP 9F SUV Concept to Be Reworked Before 2015 Debut

The near-universal reaction of the automotive press to the Bentley EXP 9F concept car's unveiling at the 2012 Geneva Auto Show was negative, according to several published reports. So much so, that the company now plans to go back to the drawing board and redesign the company's first SUV.

It's just as well. The thing's a dud.

Not only does it resemble a GMC Acadia from the windscreen back, its proportions are all wrong.

Bentley officials are now privately admitting what everyone is saying - that it made a grievous error in design, or as they put it "too heavy-handed." Quite.

To name one mistake, its headlamps are simply too large and too imposing even for Bentley. In fact, just chopping off the front end of its classic Continental design, giving it a garish face-lifting and huge foglamps, then gluing it onto a GMC Acadia-like SUV is hardly worthy of this luxury brand, which would likely charge up to $180,000 for such a vehicle on the market.

The rear, while not overtly offensive, is a bland combination of a BMW and Japanese Sport-Ute, and other than the nice detail work of the tail lamps, lacks something special in its execution.

Company spokesmen are on the record saying it would be the most expensive SUV ever sold. To do that, and do it profitably (and to meet their 2015 launch date) Bentley must get it right. They are, for now, pushing ahead with plans to send the EXP 9F on a world tour of sorts, starting with the Bejing Auto Show late next month, and also putting it in front of current Bentley owners. But surely,  the jury has been tainted at this point and there will be lots of criticism.

But a word of caution to Bentley Motors: There is also some rumbling that the company believes that a redesign will be less "retro" in its styling. While they may have been a bit too slavish in their devotion to Bentley themes in  this design study, one has to remember the experience of Jaguar.

I believed then, as I still believe, that their XF model was too radical for the brand, and went too far towards a "Japanese" look in order to please American and Western European customers (and Japanese ones as well, of course.) In fact, the first model year of that car looked a lot like a Lexus with horrible 1990s Chrysler headlamps attached to a rather Volvo-like grille. Some of that was fixed in Model Year Two, but going too far away from tradition is always a mistake in a luxury car, in my view. And I suspect that view is shared by many of the older buyers who can afford them.

(photos from the Bentley website)