3:40 pm, September 14, 2008
THE most amazing car ad ever? Honda’s brilliant ‘Cog’ commercial, according to a survey by motors.co.uk
63 per cent of over 1000 car buyers loved the ad, which cost over £3m to produce – making it the most expensive car ad ever!
Skoda’s ‘Cake’ ad was second, with 24 per cent of motorists liking it best of all. Making this was a relative snip, at £500,000: a suitably random fact is that 180 eggs were used to make the life-sized Fabia cake.
Alas, it all had to be destroyed, rather than eaten, once filming was over.
Third was the Peugeot 206 ad, where a ropey old Indian car was crushed, via various means, into the shape of a 206. Buyers also liked Papa and Nicole Clio commercials, and the Citroen C4 ‘Transformer’.
They certainly fared better than ‘hated’ car ads with UK viewers – which included the Trident ‘Mastication For The Nation’ commercial. In the past, ads for Camelot, Crunchy Nut Cornflakes and Glade air freshener have also put people off.
Katie Armitage, marketing manager for motors.co.uk said: ‘This latest survey demonstrates that car buyers have surprisingly strong opinions about their favourite adverts, which clearly demonstrates the importance of getting it right.’
‘On the motors.co.uk website, buyers can browse through hundreds of real life video car adverts to find their perfect car – and although we wouldn’t recommend dealers produce anything as complicated as the Honda Cog advert, a good video can make all the difference to a sale.’
To help dealers produce tip-top ads, motors.co.uk has produced a top-five checklist:
1. Shoot outdoors, in good daylight – never when it’s raining or in the dark.
2. Park somewhere that looks clean and tidy and provides a plain backdrop. Avoid weeds, litter or graffiti.
3. Use a camcorder, or a digital compact camera that shoots video. Cameraphones can shoot video, but quality is poor.
4. Ensure that the video lasts no more than three minutes, and that the file size is no bigger than 10mb.
5. Start with a front three-quarters shot. Show inside and outside, front and rear. Shorter shots are better than single ones.
