Car commercials are a big thing in the whole world. Almost every manufacturer has made a commercial except for of course the high end brands. Everybody has seen a car commercial at least once per day. However, people have not really been paying attention to who they are trying to sell their cars to. An example of this is Ford. We have seen the commercials about the F-150 and how they are the best towing capacity and have a lot of room for stuff in the bed. They are trying to appeal to people who have a hard working job and this is not the only car company that appeals to certain people. Car companies have been doing this for a long time right in front of us. They try to get a certain type of person to buy their car from them. Not only that, they even go as far as including gender into like the type of car that “fits” that gender. Lastly, there seems to be a certain way that they target their audience whether by the location they are in and different billboards.
Car advertisements nowadays can of course be seen on television and social media. I have seen a commercial for ford that is in Spanish. Although this may seem very obvious, it still appeals towards a Spanish speaking person and they want them to buy their cars. There are many ways that car companies appeal towards certain people. In the article “Playing hard to get: metaphor and representation in the discourse of car advertisements” by Joanna Thornborrow, it talks about how there are car companies tend to have a certain way to appeal if you are a man or a woman. It also gives many examples of some ways that they have appealed to gender. An example of this is when the author talks about how car companies can attract a male if they use women in their car advertisements: “The pun here is of course created by the homonym “model” which refers to both cars and to the profession, and by the use of the “made”, in the sense that fashion models can be “mass-produced” in the same way as cars”(Thornborrow,1). From this, we can see a way that car companies have appealed to somebody in particular. They used by the sound of it pretty attractive females and they advertised some cars for a car company. Although some people will just see a woman with a car, a guy who probably loves cars, will see a hot woman next to this certain car. Someone can interpret this as if I get this car then I will get woman that look like this lady. This is a smart tactic by the car company since they know that generally men like to buy cars and by doing this, they can sale more cars and that is one way out of thousands.
Another tactic that they use is that they try to appeal to a certain race. There are of course car companies that like to appeal to a certain race. Ford and Chevy for example have made some commercials in Spanish. They know that they will do really well here so they do it. In the article “Metaphors in Car Advertisements”, it talks about how there can be cultural involved in the type of person they want: “ A lot of cultural knowledge is involved in deciphering the meaning of the ad...This is also a cultural specific element: in Romanian the correlation is not so striking”. From this quote, we can interpret that car commercials can be cultural too. There can be a commercial that has to do with a certain culture and how they can possibly sell their car to that culture. We have seen companies like Ford and Chevrolet do it but we have yet to see everybody start something like this with their brands.
Lastly, they tend to advertise using either the location you are in whether its billboards or anything that can advertise something having to do with cars. This can be seen in the type of area you live in. I live in an area where the most expensive car ad that I have seen was an ad for infiniti. There are some ads where you get ads for like jaguar and Range Rover. In the article “Openness in Metaphorical and Straightforward Advertisements: Appreciation Effects” by Luuk Lagerwerf and Anoe Meijers, it tells us about how there are some areas where the billboard can be different depending in the area you live in: “ A very small classic car, a Fiat 500, is depicted on a road alongside a field. The headline reads "WALK, don't run." The logo makes it clear that the product being advertised is shoes rather than the car. The implication is that these shoes are classic and Italian, just like the car(Lagerwef 1). From this quote, we can see how an ad in a nice area such as Italy can be different. This ad is shown to people that have an interest in cars. Ads like these are not shown in an area where I live. Nobody in my area cares about how a fiat is like a pair of shoes. This is shown in an area where people can actually care about what this billboard is saying.
Car commercials have been targeting people all the time for a very long time. We have seen it happen but just didn’t really pay close attention to what they are actually trying to do. This will continue happening for a very long time as long as cars are still around. Of course not everybody will actually do this but it can be expected to keep on going. As long as there are cars to sale, there will always be ads that target a specific pers
No comments:
Post a Comment