Marketing of cars is really relatively easy: You simply have to ensure that the consumer wants to be in the situation portrayed in the advertisement for the given car. To achieve this, sensual and pretty women were highly effective. But today we shall have a look at what is perhaps the only alternative which can compete with those beautiful women draped over a new car while admiring the male owner.
The problem with ladies in adverts for cars is a relatively new one. Ehrm… or maybe you weren’t even aware that it had become an issue? But it has something to do with women’s liberation and equal rights, and seemed to really gather momentum as political correctness made its grand entrance. Or maybe it was a far more practical reason such as market forces, where it might have suddenly occurred to some bright spark, that as women left the kitchen and entered the workplace, they were now earning their own money and suddenly cleavage and nipples weren’t a particularly effective sales pitch – seeing as they obviously had their own.
But luckily, the marketing people have an alternative. From a political correctness point of view; a much more subtle alternative. And few adverts display the effectiveness better than this particular one for the not-so-amazingly-desirable Talbot Tagora:
It’s true, isn’t it? There’s not a single hot and scantily dressed woman in sight, but the aircraft in the background still manages to give the utterly boring Tagora an aura of masculinity, testosterone and a hint of cosmopolitan pilot mystique. Admitted, there’s a bit more to it than that, as there are several things going on in the advertisement. The funky eighties alloy wheels and not least the yellow headlights undeniably have part of the honour too.
This is where even I will claim that women in automotive adverts just aren’t quite as effective as the aircraft. The aviation theme instills the given car with a degree of status, which probably especially speaks to the more mature men, who more than likely actually have the means to purchase this new dream car. Furthermore, as an added bonus, it’s only fair to presume that this advertising trick is equally effective on feminists and other liberated women, who presumably are just as interested in aircraft as anyone else who has enjoys travelling and adventure. There’s certainly no denying that it’s a well-used marketing trick – as displayed in the picture gallery below:
As I’m probably more old-fashioned than I am politically correct, I rather appreciate when they combine the two effects as Lotus did here:
And as it is after all Friday, with the oncoming weekend just around the corner, I feel it’s highly appropriate to remind ourselves exactly what us men would like to find withinthat waiting aircraft. I acknowledge that there can of course be slight variations of the theme, but my personal aircraft parked just behind my Maserati Indy looks something like this:
ViaRETRO-bonus-question: There is manipulation and deception going on in one of the pictures from the gallery – can you identify which one?