Ad Nauseam

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. 

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.

Welcome to town Chase.  I'm super impressed you have been reading Streetsblog San Francisco and made an ad that reflects some of the knowledge you've acquired here. This is obviously a shout out to the car-free community. Might the admen understand the incredible cost savings of ditching the car for a bike, which can save you more than $9,000 every year in direct vehicle costs, not to mention the health savings from an active lifestyle and the peace of mind of contributing fewer greenhouse gases to a dangerously warming planet?

Over and over again, I hear from transportation planners and leaders at LADOT, Metro, and beyond that Livable Streets projects can't move forward because we would take away space from cars.  If you follow that view, you're basically saying that the people that use their cars are the ones doing the right things, living their lives the right way, and the rest of us are just special interests with special needs.

In casting around for a good April Fool's Day joke, I found yesterday's New York Times Lede blog report on the chicken frying corporation KFC doing some pothole repair in Louisville, complete with this photo of Colonel Sanders in a hardhat and construction bib.  I thought for sure the Times had gotten an eight-hour jump on the April Fool's fun, but amazingly this report seems to be true.  Or they're holding out on a Joaquin-Phoenix-length punchline and haven't broken it to readers that this is preposterous.  The PETA subtext in the Times story is pretty funny, but I find this all a bit unsettling.

Amtrak is back on the air with a new commercial that uses children's toys to make the point that taking a long distance trip via train is far less stressful and more enjoyable than either driving or flying.  While I personally never lined all my matchboxes up in three parallel lines to create a traffic jam in the living room, I guess it's a sign of the times.

The Ad Council has some new material in its campaign aimed at teenage drivers. In these spots, a comedic actor (Fred Willard in the ad above) in the backseat of a car with three teens cajoles or threatens the driver into slowing down or minding the road. The gist of the campaign, corresponding with the title of its web site, is "speak up or else" -- a name perhaps more suited to hard-hitting PSAs from overseas.

IBM launched its “Build a Smarter Planet” campaign to highlight its role in using technology to solve many of the world’s problems.  One of their most recent ads highlights and brags about the computer giant’s role in bringing congestion pricing, or as it terms it “smart tolling,” to European cities. After spending a year watching … Continued

Here's a particularly egregious bit of "open road" propaganda from Mercedes. In this ad, currently airing in US markets, a new Benz GLK whips through the narrow streets of what appears to be a small European village, the inhabitants of which are reduced to slo-mo scenery.