Re: To finish that...

I've never produced a cheap car dealer ad myself, but would be interested in the creative challenge of making one that was elegant and smart and inexpensive yet brought in the sales.

My wife's a graphic artist and designer, and when we see bad signage or commercial art, I point to it and say: "They need you, hon". She likewise does the same when we're watching TV at home and bad local spots come on.

Sadly, I don't think any cheap local car dealer is going to bankroll me on an untested and experimental spec spot for him, when he's obviously getting a decent enough response doing what he's always done, or he'd have tried other things...

But I have done a ton of low-budget PSA's involving transportation issues over the years, functionally similar to car spots, and many of those looked very good and worked using very little money, because they had a simple but well-thought-out message leveraged off powerful visuals and good cutting.

But back to the car dealerships for a minute.

When I had to shop for a used car, the very last thing I paid attention to were TV and radio ads. I glanced thru print ads in the paper and free weeklies and "shopper" papers, did a lot of internet research on the repair histories and user comments, and read some consumer reports and similar things, narrowed down to exactly two makes/models. Went out and rented the one of those two cars I had never driven before, drove it for a day trip. The wife and I compared notes between our two candidates, picked the one make and model we wanted and the year we wanted (used), then checked all the print sources and internet sources for that exact car near us. Test drove three candidate cars that matched our specs over two weekends at three dealerships. Picked THE car, sat down with all our research and cost estimates and haggled to a respectable deal. Done. Process took about two months from the time we decided it was necessary to buy a replacement vehicle.

In all that time we NEVER looked at anybody's TV ads and ignored all the screaming radio ads. Maybe we are not typical car buyers? When I watch the TV ads, they seem to really try and get a viewer to pull the trigger for a snap decision, stressing panic and deadlines to act. But only an idiot would decide that trivially on a purchase costing thousands, right?

Maybe I'm answering my own questions?