I don't think they sold new bagels, perfumes, and houses with ads like these in the 1990s. They are nightmarish, difficult to read, and minimize the product. It shouldn't be forgotten that this product wasn't a commodity that needed a fantastic effort to differentiate it from other products. It was already unique and revolutionary just by existing at all. All the ads needed to do was show the product.
When the key selling point of the product is that it doesn't pollute (or at least its pollution occurs at battery factories and power plants instead of in driveways and on the road) then the ad should have themes of nature, cleanliness, and health, in addition to traditional car themes of family, speed, and attraction.
It seems obvious to me that the ads were created specifically to meet the CYA need of being able to say they advertised the product, while actually scaring off any potential market.
It reminds me of SaniJet, one of the only (or perhaps still THE only) clean whirlpool, trying to sell their product alongside competitors' whirlpools in stores. They were kept off showroom floors because customers were asking "If SaniJet is clean, why do you sell all these other dirty whirlpools?" Why would anyone selling a wide variety of products in their showroom want to sell ANY of them as being healthier or cleaner than the others? In the case of the electric car, the manufacturer and vendor were theoretically on the same team, but it threatened the rest of the company's products.
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bbagnall
13 years ago
I don't recall seeing commercials for a house, neither for bagels, but it's funny you mention perfume because if you go back to that day you'll see the odd perfume ad that was done in that Tim Burton style too. It's just the cultural miasma that was swirling around back in the early 1990s.
You could look at ads form the 1950s and say, "Oh, the music is so boring, and what's with the stiff guy wearing the suit? They did it all wrong. They must have been trying to sabotage their own product." But you would be wrong.
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tharrx
13 years ago
I saw Who killed the Electric Car in a movie theater in Cambridge, MA, liberal central. In just a few minutes, the film had me and almost everyone in the audience wanting an electric car.
Then, they showed the print and TV ads supposedly intended to "sell" the car, and the audience erupted into derisive laughter. Those ads were that bad.
They reminded me of the awful "Tobacco is Wacko" ads that the cigarette companies agreed to make to keep teens from smoking. Of course, it turned out most teens weren't turned off by the ads, and the that government-sponsored ad campaigns were much more effective.
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bbagnall
13 years ago
Well if you go back to the 1950's you and your liberal audience would laugh at those ads too. Times change and tastes change.
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tharrx
13 years ago
Well, this wasn't the 1950s. These Ads were very recent, and they were awful. How can you explain that a low budget movie would do such a good job selling an audience (an audience very receptive to the ides of an electric car) on the concept of an electric car, while a big budget ad campaign by a major auto make would get such derisive hoots from that same audience?
Simple: the ads were designed to make people NOT want an electric car.
I invite anyone to look at the awful ad they made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g7cgUm7o9k
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bbagnall
13 years ago
Right, so GM went and designed a EV car, spent tons of their own money and effort to do so, and then tried to make it not sell very well. Can you just imagine them talking to the marketing firm they hire to film and make these ads? "Make us a really bad ad for this car." You must be smoking up or something to believe that would fly in the business world with multiple teams and hundreds if not thousands of people involved in the whole enterprise.
No, the fact is that Tim Burton was hot, and a Burtonesque commercial seemed cutting edge at that time. Sorry you can't understand that 1990 is a different time from 2011.
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tharrx
13 years ago
You ever reach that point in a discussion about a movie in which you realize the person you're talking to has not seen this movie? I think we've reached that point.
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bbagnall
12 years ago
Sorry, but seen it a long time ago. The problem here is that soft heads are very susceptible to mind programming via documentary. I've seen it a thousand times how Michael Moore style documentaries push the BS button and you get gullible people believing every word.
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