advertising automotive

Can someone please tell me what in the Dickenschmidt is going on with German car advertising these days. For decades it was a showcase of extraordinary advertising, but lately it looks more like a meat case of automotive advertising at its wurst. (Okay, enough with the German gags.) But seriously, this flyweight of a BMW ad you see here is just the latest in a series of new lows for this marque.
Years ago, BMW advertising was subject to a number of screens. The guys running the creative, either Tom Thomas or Joe O’Neill (and ultimately Marty Puris), would take a look at all the work that had been developed. If something was a good idea, it might make it as a co-op ad or a subhead in one of the brand’s brochures (back when integrated marketing just happened instead of being constantly touted as the new, new thing). If it was a really good idea, it got elevated to being a DAG ad. (”Dealer Advertising Group” for the uninitiated.) And only if it was a truly

extraordinary ad did it make it to the national arena. (What can I say, there was a sale of italics this week.)

Needless to say, this puppy would barely have made it as a bumper sticker.

Interestingly, it was Marty Puris himself who first introduced me to the notion that “it takes ten years to build a reputation and ten years to lose it.” He wasn’t talking about BMW, but he might as well have been. From what I hear, the cars are still terrific. But the U.S. economy sure isn’t. Which would seem to make this a spectacularly bad time for BMW to just coast along. Persistence of memory will only get you so far–unless you’re a painting by Dali.