Reader Paul Murphy sends along this ad from the Australian division of Giant Bicycles. The spot, by the Melbourne-based firm Leo Burnett, started airing last summer as part of Giant’s “Real Riders” campaign. Imagine if images of grocery bags slung over handlebars could somehow saturate the airwaves as much as sleek new luxury sedans gliding through traffic-free downtown streets.

Has anyone seen an ad with so many scenes of city cycling air in the U.S.?

Nettbuss – Whoever you are from Cobblestone Filmproduktion on Vimeo.

(Warning: This ad isn’t completely safe for work.)

It’s no surprise revelation that sex sells; but this somewhat steamy advertisement (well, steamy by American standards) for Norwegian bus company Nettbuss isn’t really about sex, it’s about freedom and the unexpected pleasure of riding the bus.  Sure, the one steamy scene does capture viewer attention, but I identify more with the kid running through the fields being chased by bullies than the Don Juan who’s accidental headbutt leads to a fun afternoon in the kitchen. I’m just way too coordinated for that.

Freedom through riding transit.  It’s a concept embraced by Livable Streets advocates, but rarely seen on television.  Ok, sometime you’ll see an ad like this for bike riding, but never for bus riding.

The ad also celebrates that a benefit to riding transit is interacting with other people. You never know if the person next to you on the bus is the kind of person who would help a young kid escape bullies, would take the train to their wedding or would lock a bunch of kids in the hallway for the worst field trip in history.

But what really makes this ad stands out is that its everything that American transit advertisements are not.  Bold.  Fun.  Dare I say it, adventurous.  There’s a lot that American transit carriers can learn from Europe, and one of those things is how to market transit service as something more than welfare or a cheap way to get to the ball game.

Exhibit A is from Geico, which as usual doesn’t use cars in its ads for car insurance. Instead, in this spot the company’s ubiquitous cartoon spokeslizard is depicted walking the center line of the Brooklyn Bridge bike-ped path, extolling the value of Geico auto, RV and motorcycle insurance. Then comes the caveat — “You want to find a place to park all these things? Fuhgeddaboudit! This is New York.” — before the lizard is almost squashed by a cyclist who yells at him for being in the way.

Whether you’re from the city or not, you’re in on the joke: New York is a place where space is tight and people are on the move. But also: You don’t need a car to live here, and in fact, you’re probably better off without the hassle.

I was actually surprised when greeted by three ads for Buy Here Pay Here car dealerships on the Los Angeles Times webpage when running a search for the series that demolished any moral ground the industry stands on.  I know the ads were placed by Google Ads and there’s nobody at the Times that took a check from a dealership to place the ads, but there is a way you can block ads by certain advertisers.  I guess its one thing to announce to the world that a vampire industry is flourishing under our noses.  It’s another thing to block their advertisements.

Does reality suck?  Apparently to General Motors.

Yesterday, the company’s year old advertising campaign to college students received a fresh round of scorn yesterday as Bike Portland published their most recent print advertisement, found in the Daily Bruin and heaped on loads of scorn.

But here’s the thing, just like State Farm’s Humiliated Cyclist ad campaign, the meaning of the advertisement is open to interpretation.  I see the ads as cleverly disguised apologies for the damage wrought by America’s Car Culture obsession aided by General Motors’ advertising and lobbying activities.

Image via the Daily Bruin via Bike Portland

A UCLA undergraduate who lives with her parents because of family debt partially caused by decades of car payments, stumbles wearily out of the house. Her Dad insists that he drive her to her first class in the morning, even though they live in Westwood. So the two walk to the car parked on the sidewalk in front of her house and they head off to class. She keeps the window rolled up to avoid the air pollution created during the morning rush hour on Westwood Boulevard. Just as she thinks, “Reality Sucks, I never should have given up the bike I road in high school for this crap,” (stopped pedaling to start driving…) a cyclist pulls up. She gives him her best come hither smile, but the poor cyclist is tired of being sexually harassed because he’s constantly exercising so he pretends not to see her. Besides, he’s running a little early today because he needs to finish the Model Street Manual encouraging healthier streets published by the Luskin Center for Innovation before he can read the most recent update on UCLA’s Be a Green Commuter Blog.

But not everyone agrees with this interpretation.  The Social Cycling Austin Facebook site has also re-imagined the advertisement.

Other advertisements in the campaign take a firm stand against bus service cuts that cause overcrowding and apologize to pedestrians for drivers that are gigantic assholes.

Via GM's Reality Sucks website

She gets out of the car and waves goodbye to her father.  As she stands at the intersection of Westwood and Le Conte, waiting for her turn to cross one of L.A.’s innovative Scramble Crosswalks, a passing car driver spills some of his Big Gulp on his lap causing him to lose his concentration.  As he veers towards the pedestrian area, he regains control of his vehicle but not before splashing a puddle all over the helpless pedestrian.  ”Reality Sucks,” she thinks again.

Exhausted and wet from her “relaxed commute,” she stumbles in to the campus coffee shop .  As she enters she notices the cyclist who scorned her earlier before zipping past the congested traffic to campus is walking out on his way to his urban planning class.  But then she spots a familiar face, her friend Ellen, across the way.  She sits down and asks, “what’s up?”  But Ellen has had a hard morning herself.  Her commute hasn’t been the same since Metro was forced to cut 30% of its bus service hours because of a decline in federal and state subsidies.  If only the government hadn’t wasted all that money on Cash for Clunkers, Car Industry Bailouts or decades of subsidizing freeway and road construction.  ”Reality doesn’t have to suck,” Ellen says as she imagines a greener alternative to the status quo.

Have we missed any images or other parts of the campaign?  Send any images or text to damien@streetsblog dot org or leave them in the comments section.

If you’ve been watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, which resumes tonight, you’ve probably seen this Subaru spot, called “Baby Driver.” In it, a distressed father leans into the passenger side window, imploring his preschool-age daughter to be careful on the road — stay off the freeways, put the phone away — to the point that she interrupts with a sweetly impatient “Daddy, o-kay.” When he gives up the keys, we see the child as a present-day teenager. As she backs out of the driveway, to the obligatory strains of an acoustic guitar, the word “love” pops up on the screen. It dissolves into the Subaru logo as dad’s voice intones: “We knew this day was coming. That’s why we bought a Subaru.”

From his body language and tone of voice, the way he watches helplessly as she drives away, you’d think his daughter was shipping out for Afghanistan. What the voice-over might as well have said was, “No one wants their kids to drive. We know it’s incredibly dangerous. So we bought a Subaru in hopes that our child won’t die.”

If you can get past the myth of driving as an unavoidable rite of passage, you have to hand it to Subaru on this one. Based on the YouTube comments, it’s pulling a lot of heartstrings. And the emphasis, at least, is on safety (albeit for those inside the Subaru). Contrast that with the current campaign from fellow March Madness sponsor Dodge, featuring commercials like the one after the jump. Given its celebration of sociopathic behavior — watch as the Charger plows heedlessly through urban crosswalks at “movie car chase” speeds — we wonder if the narration by Michael C. Hall, TV’s favorite serial killer, is more than coincidence.

It’s enough to keep a Subaru dad awake at night.

For a full copy of the ad, click here.

Via the website Girl Bike Love comes one of the more depressing automobile advertisements we’ve seen recently.  Used car resale dealership Tyme Auto Group, proudly serving Northern Ohio and Michigan, proudly offers a discount to any jogger or cyclist who promises to stay off the road the author is driving on (sic).

It’s hardly uncommon for an advertiser to try and attract their target audience by mocking another one.  For example, every football fan has been subjected to beer commercials with attractive women mocking awkward men for not recognizing the brilliance of Miller Light this past season, but there’s always a chance this one could backfire.  After all, all one has to do to be considered a “cyclist or jogger” is own a bicycle or pair of shoes and self-identify.  And who doesn’t like a 15% discount?  Even if it is just for a 2000 Chrysler Concorde?

Dodge Charger: “Man’s Last Stand”

Chrysler stokes the gender wars with this ad suggesting that the American male may seem to have been tamed by the boss and neutered by the wife, but all that the rebel within needs to bust out is a $38K fully loaded Dodge Charger. The road is his last refuge, the one place where he can still be a manly man. He’ll “eat fruit” at home, but he won’t be a fruit in control of the kind of growling, ferocious muscle car that had its heyday back when men last really had it good. (For a rejoinder, click here.)

Toyota Sienna: “Mommy Like”

How does a mom, stressed from commuting to work and shuttling the kids to soccer practice day in and day out, get away from it all? Why, of course, by spending more time in her vehicle! In this commercial for the Sienna minivan, Mommy steals some quality time alone—in the backseat where the kids usually get to have all the fun. The message? Auto dependence’s problems are solved not by driving less but by buying more, including a new car chock-a-block with luxury options to distract us from the aggravation and tedium of the average 18 ½ hours Americans sit in a car each week.

Lexus: “The Next Big Thing”

Billions of dollars of ads touting safety have helped convince Americans that the phrase “safe car” is no oxymoron, notwithstanding the roughly 380,000 crash deaths over the past decade. Here’s a Lexus ad that takes to a dizzying new level the myth that car technology will solve—any minute now—the problems that the car itself has created. Its suggestion that “a real driver in a real car reacting to a real situation without real consequences” is a real possibility fosters a false sense of safety among drivers that encourages dangerous risk-taking. It also deflects the push for meaningful regulation in areas such as roof crush and crash incompatibility.

Hyundai Sonata: “Turboface”

It’s nothing new for a car company to produce a commercial that encourages speeding as an expression of freedom. But this Hyundai Sonata Turbo ad, set not on expansive wilderness roads but on compact city streets, makes the laughably miniscule disclaimer — “Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt”—more ironic than ever.

Hyundai Sonata: “Horizontal Bungee Jumping”

Another ad from Hyundai that finds risk-taking amusing, while also playing into the notion that we can protect ourselves from all those other bad drivers out there (in this case, the crazy young ’uns on the road)–if we just buy the right car.

Subaru: “Baby Driver”

A good parent buys the right car to protect their good children from all those bad drivers out there (in this case, the crazy young ‘uns on the road whose parents failed to give them the best car or the best advice). This is just one of the latest and most pathos-laden of ads following a remarkable trend of exploiting kids to sell cars to adults and to peddle car culture to kids. Reality bites back, though: there remains nothing more deadly to teenagers than crashes, and those with their own cars are more likely to die in them than those who share their parents’ vehicles.

Toyota Highlander: “Kid Cave”

Here’s another kid-driven beaut. “Just because you’re a parent doesn’t mean you have to be lame,” needles Nathan in this SUV commercial from a campaign founded on the power of pester marketing. Toyota is no doubt relying on surveys showing that the majority of parents say their children had meaningful input into the decision to buy the last family vehicle, especially their kids around Nathan’s age: 6-8 years old.

Chevrolet: “Chevy Runs Deep”

This one just looks like a car ad. It’s really part of a political campaign to justify the bailouts and delegitimize further industry safety and other regulation. And if you are old enough to remember Reagan’s similar “Morning in America” ads, you’ll recognize stroking people’s sense of national self-worth as a tried-and-true sales technique. Combining wistful nostalgia for the country’s economic glories of the past and bright-eyed optimism for its eco-friendly techno-future, this Chevrolet ad reminds us that our past, present, and future all depend on a healthy US auto industry, even if the cost in dollars and lives seems high.

Our independent spirit makes most Americans reluctant to believe that we are susceptible to the persuasion of advertising. And while we may not be immediately swayed by any one maker’s single pitch to run out and buy a particular model, the marketing formula works, over the long run, to feed a culture based on owning and driving cars. A dollop of family love, a dash of freedom, a heap of faith in progress and America: it’s the well-tested recipe that keeps the American car buyer coming back for more.

Lexus has suspended sales of its GX 460 after Consumer Reports issued a "don't buy" warning earlier this week. Apparently the luxury SUV's electronic "stability control" system can fail to correct drivers taking turns too quickly, resulting in a rollover risk. Times car blog Wheels reports:

Mr. Champion [Consumer Reports auto testing director] said that the problem came to light at the magazine's test track in East Haddam, Conn., while looking for "any nasty habits that might catch a driver out." He explained, "We want a car to be benign."

Speaking of nasty habits, the problem might well have come to light during this commercial shoot. Far from presenting the GX 460 as benign, Lexus hawks it as the nimble vehicle every upwardly-mobile mom needs to whip through city streets teeming with urban dangers (and cleared of urban traffic, natch). Strap in, precious, we're goin' to lacrosse practice!

So we have a carmaker promoting its product as a street-legal racing machine, and a consumer watchdog group telling the public it should not be driven as advertised -- or better yet, not driven at all.

We've tapped this vein before, but until "Closed Course/Professional Driver/Do Not Attempt" marketing goes the way of the "healthy" cigarette ad, supposed fail-safe features -- mostly designed to protect those inside the car -- will continue to be so much window dressing. Like those pedestrians in Batmom's peripheral vision.

Picture a future where a smiling multi-racial police force, who apparently answers to nobody, moves unchecked through society arresting and detaining people for offenses to the environment.  Use plastic bags at the grocers?  You're arrested, frisked, and handcuffed before being frog marched from the store.  Set your hot tub at too high a temperature?  You're chased, early naked, through your back yard by a hoard of police officers.  Sound like a nightmare scenario dreamed up by a conservative talk radio host?  Nope, it's just another greenwashing attempt from the same car company that mocks cyclists, bus riders, pedestrians and people who drive cars run on vegetable oil.

Audi's offering for the Super Bowl, "The Green Police" is really something to behold.  From the admittedly catchy theme song parodying "The Dream Police," performed by eighties Super-Cover Band Cheap Trick, to the celebration of gestapo tactics against environmental offenders; Green Police has something for everyone.  The Huffington Post calls the advertisement "hilarious," while Grist beams that "The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police."  Of course, the only way to avoid the unchecked power of the Green Police is to but an Audi that is powered by "clean diesel."

Completely absent from the commercial is any mention or image of cyclists or pedestrians, which is actually sort of an improvement from past ads.  The aforementioned vegetable oil powered car?  It's still waiting at a Green Police Vehicle Checkpoint while Audi's are waived through.  The attractiveness of the segway seems to have improved since it was mocked last fall, the electric powered vehicle is now the transportation of choice for the Green Police...when they're not in their helicopter or car caravan.

But Audi inadvertently has sent the correct message to the middle-class masses who might be interested in purchasing their diesel fleet: That buying this car is the best way to feel good about yourself without really doing much for the environment.  After all, it's the same paramilitary police force that sees that car as the answer to our environmental crisis that can't compute the amount of environmental destruction caused by a helicopter raid against someone not composting or surrounding a house with squad cars because the person isn't disposing of their batteries correctly.

The first time I saw this ad I thought my eyes and ears were deceiving me. But no, there it is: a young woman holding a cellphone toward the camera as "nüvifone" maker Garmin beckons viewers to "communicate while navigating."

"With my nüvifone, I can take calls from my friends while I'm driving to them," she says as she's shown piloting an SUV with two passengers, one of whom accepts an incoming call on a phone mounted to the windshield. (Note to Garmin: Hands-free is not brain-free.)

Maybe the most egregious aspect is the "Do not drive while distracted" disclaimer -- which pops up as the young woman is depicted driving while distracted.

Toyota wants you to know that it’s here for you. And not just as a
car maker, as the company explains in this spot, ironically entitled
"Community."

Like GM before them, Toyota wants to make sure you realize just how much their company means to you. Here’s our voice-over:

"We acknowledge you are coming to despise automobiles,
but your nation depends on our industry for so many jobs that, even if
we only manufactured cardboard cut-out cars that you had to carry down
your few remaining walkable Main Streets, you’d still need us,
America."

Accompanying the ad is the aggressively cloying and patently manipulative "Beyond Cars"
web site –
which if nothing else should serve as an irresistible culture-jamming
target. What do we see, Toyota? For starters, we see a world where your product doesn’t kill people.

And you? What do you see?

Just in case I thoroughly depressed our cyclist readers with the overview of the timeline for the Draft Bike Plan, I wanted to provide some inspiration in the form of some funny and inspiring bike commercials from the Netherlands.  H/t to Dave Feucht of the Streetsblog.net discussion group.

Fortunately, since I can't speak Dutch, the good people at Bike Forums are a couple of years ahead of me in translating.  What follows is the rough translation of the ad above.  After the jump are three more advertisements, two of them don't need a translation, but below the fourth advertisement is another translation.  All translations by Nicodemus at Bike Forums.

The translation from above:

(macho key posing)
announcement: attention: driver of a blue Saab... you forgot your parking brake.

(guy on left chuckles)

announcement: attention: the blue Saab went into the yellow Lotus

(guy on left cringes)

Cyclist at the back walks out smiling.

Zonder ongemakken? (without inconveniences?)
Pak de fiets! (take the bike!)

The first phase is understanding.

And then you must take the initiative yourself.

And if he can do it himself, we let him loose.

Autoslavery is a serious problem

We must help these people.

Yeah, someone has to sit in traffic

Today was International Walk to School Day, and according to this Audi commercial, if you participated you're a big loser.

In all seriousness, this has to be one of the most obnoxious spots we've featured on Streetsblog. Basically, per Audi: If you take transit, you're a glutton for punishment; if you ride a bike, you're a hapless weenie.

But Audi owners? They're just like you: "trying to do their part" for the environment. Only they do it by driving a $30,000, fossil fuel-burning, CO2-emitting private automobile. Though it is "clean diesel" -- you can pretty much drink that stuff, right?

So, a lot of you didn't like the Emmy Award Winning P.S.A. put out by LADOT in 2008 which showed a young girl getting hit by a speeding car because it put too much of the blame on the girl and not enough on the driver.  I thought it was a powerful piece, maybe because as an expectant father any image of a child being mauled by a vehicle is going to get my attention, and many commenters thought it was a missed opportunity to make a point about dangerous driving.

Fair enough.

But to be fair to LADOT, yesterday I was only covering the advertisement that won the Emmy.  Above, is a companion announcement focusing only on the driver's role in the crash.  If I were an Emmy voter, I would have voted for yesterday's featured ad over this one because the voice-over from the driver in today's sounds a little off to me:

My God!  How did this happen?  As a child, I was always in a hurry.  As I got older, I was always distracted.   And in the next second, I'll kill a little girl.

Then, the same film of a young girl in a pink soccer uniform getting slammed into by the driver is shown before the voice changes to another man, presumably one of the police on the scene.

Good driving behavior starts at an early age.  Traffic safety is everybody's responsibility.  Watch the road.

Given how we’ve mocked LADOT’s previous Emmy Award Winning P.S.A., you might think this headline was sarcastic, but it’s not.

The above Public Service Announcement, a surprisingly graphic advertisement that delivers a powerful message that no matter who is legally "at fault" drivers need to watch the road carefully or they could end up with blood on their hands. For pedestrians, the advertisement delivers a warning to look both ways, after all they’re the ones who’s lives are literally on the line.  For drivers, a plea to drive more slowly when children are nearby.

The video starts with a warning that the video may not be suitable for minors before we hear a child introduce herself:

Hi, I’m eight years old.  In the next fifteen seconds, I’m going to get hit by a car.  Look both ways before crossing the street.  Drive with caution around kids.  Traffic safety is everyone’s responsibility.  Watch.  The.  Road.

In the moments before the Watch the Road tagline, we see the young girl who narrates the commercial chase after a ball and get slammed by a passing car.  The windshield implodes before we refocus on a gurney wheel rolling past a shoe.

Given the "cartoon violence" we’ve seen in some past P.S.A.’s, this new advertisement shows an agency willing to take a risk to prove a point.  The only complaint I have is that this P.S.A. ran in 2008 and I never heard of it until today!  Memo to LADOT, get this one up and running again!

According to Movieline (via New York Mag),
Jay Leno’s new prime time show, set to debut on NBC in September,
hasn’t exactly been generating a lot of buzz. But since nothing says
funny like a grisly hit-and-run, this promo, co-starring Fred Armisen
of "Saturday Night Live," should turn things around.

Though
I’m pretty sure Leno has never gotten as much as a chuckle from me, I
understand where the humor is supposed to be here. Yet for some reason the laughter isn’t coming.

Somewhere, though, I imagine pedestrian-hater Robert Novak is yukking it up.

Last week Streetsblog NYC's Brad Aaron posted what is sure to be a car-culture classic.  This three minute web-only commercial celebrates people that enjoy putting so much money into their cars' sound systems that they can terrorize entire neighborhoods by blasting music at ear-splitting volumes.  A lot of times when I'm writing an "Ad-nauseam" post I might exaggerate a part of the commercial to help make a larger point. 

If you watch this video, you'll see that now is not one of those times.

The people in the commercials are so proud of their cars, and their sound systems that they just want to share with the world whether they wish to receive this gift or not.  Witness one dude who smirks as he describes cranking it up when people in other cars look at him in disgust or my personal favorite the dude who's music is so loud he makes children on the streets cry and then shrugs at the parents because, "these things happen."

It sort of puts the rather modest sound systems that accompany some Midnight Ridazz and Critical Mass rides into perspective, doesn't it?

Even without the taglines at the top of the video, I'm guessing that you could figure out which city's P.S.A.'s were a strident warning to drivers to pay attention or they're going to kill someone and which city's compared cyclists to insects.

Over at NYC Streetsblog, Brad Aaron notes that these new advertisements "don't flinch" and remind drivers of the deadly consequences of even a moments negligence.  These ads, available here, will run through June, and are accompanied by direct mail pieces for city homeowners and drivers license holders.  Powerful stuff, but part of me wonders if the ad will also discourage people from taking up cycling.  I mean, that dude in the stretcher looks pretty messed up.  He's not bug-splatter or anything, but still...

And for anyone that thinks that it's unfair to pull an LADOT advertisement from a couple of years ago to compare to the hard-hitting stuff being put out in NYC, components of the "Laws of Physics" advertisement campaign are still being circulated today.  At Bike to Work Day, I received a yellow bracelet bearing the slogan "Ride right and stop at the light;" a slogan which still confuses me.  Are they telling me to ride correctly, or urging me to ride in the gutter?  Is the bracelet an example of bad grammar or bad advice?

In the interest of fairness, the LADOT has released advertisements encouraging safe driving, but even those rely on a somewhat cartoonish level of violence than the hard-hitting stuff being put out by our friends across the country.