It's Funny, the creator should be Charged, and it's Ridiculous

I was searching websites a random to find an ad or link to write a blog about and then I hit yahoo.ca. In a standard big box Chevy showed us how an old fashion attitude doesn’t fit well with a new medium like the internet. 

The big three are known to be notorious when it comes to bad marketing and advertising. Although they have seen to be slowly leaving these old fashion ideals, this ad seems to be just that. 

This big box ad begins with a picture you see with changing copy. From “It’s fun”, to “turbocharged” and finally “Ridiculously fuel efficient turbo engine” before changing into the picture you see in front of you.

Who is their target? There is a hip looking lady on the top of the picture; next to her are a heart, and a speedometer. This is all above the car and a cool looking rainbow coloured wall.

Without the copy this ad seems like it would be targeted towards hi young woman (badly designed towards hip young woman). The copy however makes the car sound cheap and throws off the feminine vibe. “It’s Fun” sounds condescending, “Turbocharged” and “Ridiculously Fuel Efficient” kind of feel contradictory. They are trying to give it a girly vibe and they throw in turbocharge. I can understand it sounding nice with the Sonic name but it’s out of place. Ending with Ridiculously fuel efficient turbo charge engine would be fine after fuel efficient but I don’t think “Turbocharge” belongs in front of the fuel efficient statement. 

The choice of wording for an ad is very important. If someone tried to sell me a car claiming it was fun, I would tell him to quit his job and to go back to school for anything but advertising and marketing. Also I think the word ridiculous is being thrown around too much these days. I understand the angle of using this word but I would only use that word to describe the use of the same word in an ad.

Possible replacements- unbelievably fuel efficient, surprisingly fuel efficient and fuel efficiently fun (the last one a was joke).

When looking at the ad, I thought it was just badly designed, but when actually dissecting the overall target group I believe the only positive factor of this ad is that at least they are using the internet.

I originally wanted to comment on how I would change this ad but I feel that I would have to go to square 1 and actually check out the target market, car information, different design concepts, etc. You know all the stuff they failed to do in this ad.