The End of an Advertising Era

The evolving power base in the advertising ecosystem

Politics aside its clear that we’re in a changing environment as technology adoption and innovation accelerates. The fact that there’s a generation out there unfamiliar with the Motorola Startac makes me feel ancient by comparison and yet the iPhone was only launched 10 years ago. In those 10 years, we’ve seen not only the growth of the smartphone market but we’ve also seen privatized reusable rockets, electric cars, artificial intelligence, realistic virtual reality and consumer accessible gene sequencing.

It’s with that backdrop that I looked at this year’s crop of Superbowl advertisers and started to think that we’re at the pinnacle of the trend in exciting automotive advertising.

If you look back in history, automotive advertising has leaned on two dominant types of advertising: feature showcases, and adrenaline pieces. The industry started with feature showcases which were ads that focused on the features of the vehicles, easy shifting, vanity mirrors, safety functions, power windows, etc. To a new US consumer considering buying their first vehicle feature based advertising made a lot of sense — it was educational and helped to differentiate the various products in the market.

But the reality is that the typical American consumer loved their cars not because of cool features but because of it’s ability to perform. So as the market matured it was logical to see automotive advertising move to adrenaline pieces. These ads showcased the cars driving on winding roads at top speed, as they were meant to trigger the empathetic response that made the viewer envious of the experience of driving the car.

If you look at advertising today it’s still possible to categorize vehicles into these two categories. Often the more expensive the car the more it leverages adrenaline techniques and the less expensive the more it’s touting features.

But I think we’re entering a new era in automotive advertising, and the beginning of the decline and possible the death of the adrenaline focused advertising. Why? The self-driving car. Most analysts are speculating that we’re headed to a future where vehicle ownership goes away and instead the world is dominated by vehicle fleets that are available on demand. Even before we all give up having our own vehicles we’ll all start embracing the concept of self-driving cars because in all practicality it’s better to be driven that to drive oneself, especially in our modern gridlock world. The idea of driving for pleasure has already fled the American consciousness only to be replaced by the head banging on the steering wheel of the realities of driving the Santa Monica Freeway.

As the market converts to more self-driving vehicles we will eventually get to a point where driving oneself is legislated out of existence like the elevator operator of the past. We’ll realize that humans are more dangerous behind the wheel compared to robots.

At that point, the idea of a supercharged car driving winding roads is likely going to be an experience saved for some Disney ride of the future where you get to experience the past by driving a car for yourself (probably safely in virtual reality). So where does that leave us with automotive advertising? More likely with the feature driven commercials that have been around since the beginning but also a likely an increase in the number of ads meant to trigger emotions through other means. Adrenaline will be replaced with feelings of accomplishment, family, and social interaction. It’ll feel more like a commercial for the new iPhone than a new 3 Series BMW. Advertising will have to evolve to a paradigm of driver converting to passenger and the advertising will probably look more like ads for airlines do today.

Personally, it’s a little depressing. Automotive advertising is one of the premier categories in the field and many a memorable ad has come from agencies supporting car companies. Those of you who watched Mad Men will remember that every great agency on Madison Avenue is defined by their Car.

With the coming evolution of the self-driving car, I believe it may be only a few more Superbowls wherein we’re able to relish the adrenaline rush of a sporty car commercial. So as a memorial to what may be the end of an era I’d like to leave you with a fantastic example of best of breed adrenaline fueled automotive advertising courtesy of Alfa Romeo.