You are now entering Ad Space, a realm of commercials, brought before us so we might examine how they work, and discuss why we both love and hate them so. So it is written …
The Product:
Lexus automobiles
The Promotion:
The Pitch:
We build cars for the most magnificent people around … you are one of the most magnificent people around, right?
They say advertising should present an aspirational image. Whether that’s wealth, strength, confidence, sexiness, suavity – it presents the sort of person or the sort of lifestyle that you aspire to, and then imply that, if you buy what they’re selling, you can make that dream a reality.
But this ad … it handles it in some weird ways.
For starters, the aspirational fantasy it presents is almost absurdly unspecific. There are statements about how “for you, excellence isn’t a challenge, it’s a default” and “their standard isn’t for the average, it’s for those who set the bar … and then elevate it”. But what any of that means is terribly unclear. What, precisely, are we supposed to be excellent at? Who are we setting/elevating the bar for?
It’s all kept as deliberately vague as The Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.
Going beyond that, though, it also kinda has its aspirational fantasy reversed. It’s not suggesting that buying a Lexus will help you achieve this dream of vaguely-defined excellence. Rather, it’s suggesting that you are already this sort of excellent person, so a Lexus is the only car that’s good enough for you.
It’s an interesting approach. For people with a sizable ego on them, who genuinely believe they deserve all these platitudes, sure, it’ll work. And for extremely image conscious people who want to project the appearance of being magnificent: ditto. But for people who possess even a little humility, starting off the ad by saying how “you” are this rare breed of perfection … well, I feel like it’s gonna make ’em go “I don’t know who this commercial is talking to, but it’s clearly not me”.
Whether that’s a bad tradeoff or not, that’s for someone in market research to say.