Streetsblog New York City

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.?

While the choked parking lots at many suburban high schools might mislead you, young people today are less interested in driving and owning cars than their counterparts in previous generations. This is happy news for environmentalists and complete streets advocates, who see fewer vehicles on the road as key to a healthier, wealthier society. For the global auto industry, though, it is an existential threat not to be ignored.

Generation Y’s reluctance to embrace car culture may be temporary, reflecting merely the tough economic times, especially for those burdened with college debt. But studies show teens now maintain connectivity through the internet, not though cars, and teen driving rates have been in steady decline since the late seventies. So young people’s lack of interest in driving may presage a more fundamental shift in how we connect with other people, where we choose to live and work, and how we construct our identities. Either way, the auto industry isn’t taking any chances. Here are just a few tactics car makers are employing to take back the future.

Ratcheting up marketing to kids. Marketing cars directly to children pays off big for car companies even though they won’t be driving or buying their own for years. American children in particular hold real sway over family purchases: more than half of parents surveyed by JD Power said their children had meaningful input in choosing the family vehicle.

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Before Streetsblog goes offline for the Thanksgiving weekend, I’d like to reiterate my unsolicited advice for Jennifer Lopez: There is an easy and, I believe, highly effective way to control the damage from the revelation that you did not actually film this Fiat 500 Cabrio commercial on the streets of the Bronx.

For those just tuning in, The Smoking Gun broke this story last night. J Lo filmed her close-ups for the Fiat spot in Los Angeles, while a body double kept the driver’s seat warm for the actual footage from the Bronx, and a digital effects firm added a few touches of computer-generated boogie-down fakery — all to make it seem like Lopez was actually driving around her old neighborhood, on the streets that “inspire” her.

The sophisticated operation to spare J Lo from having to venture out to her home borough is not just great NYC tabloid fodder — it’s national news. So, on to the image rehab advice, which is pretty simple: J Lo needs to film a bike ad in the Bronx. Here are three reasons why this is a great idea:

1. Big points for being down to earth. The suggested retail price of the Fiat 500 Cabrio is $26,000. It’s not a Benz, but it’s kind of an ostentatious display when you can get just about anywhere you need to go in NYC with an unlimited Metrocard and a bike. Even a very nice new city bike, if J Lo were to pitch one, won’t set you back more than $600 to $1,200.
2. The playing-with-kids scenes will be way more believable. Even before The Smoking Gun story came out, the Fiat ad didn’t exactly scream authenticity. That part where the kids run and skip next to a moving motor vehicle with J Lo inside? Didn’t seem fun. A group ride with J Lo would actually look like a good time.
3. Trendsetting. As far as I know, there are no big-time celebrity endorsement deals with the major bike manufacturers, nor are there any bike ads on TV. Probably because the bike industry has a lot less to throw around than the car companies. J Lo wouldn’t be doing this bike spot for the payday, she’d do it to be a pioneer.

I say this all as a big “Out of Sight” fan and a devout viewer of American Idol Season 10 (at least until Haley got voted off). And I didn’t even get to the part about biking being healthy, good for the environment, and a much better fit than personal motorized transport for the Bronx streets that inspire J Lo.

I’ll admit it: I love the Chrysler ad campaign “Imported from Detroit,” which debuted in February’s Super Bowl spot starring Eminem.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for hometown pride. I was born about 60 miles downriver from the Motor City in Toledo, Ohio, a town sometimes known affectionately as “Little Detroit.” I remember when it was considered treasonous to drive a foreign car.

That’s the brilliance of these ads. They appeal to our inner urge to root for the underdog, our nostalgia for simpler days. Those flashes of a grand-looking Woodward Avenue. The water tower that proudly shouts “Birmingham, Michigan.”

It’s also very telling, the commodification of Detroit. It says something about Americans’ new-found fascination with cities — the same fascination that has inspired many young entrepreneurs who are working to reinvent Detroit.

But Chrysler is selective about the Detroit it celebrates. Absent is the ruin that now accounts for a large share of the city. Invisible is the crushing poverty, constantly present in the urban landscape. The driver in the most recent installment, traveling out from the center of Detroit to its suburbs, is in control of his fate (thanks to his snappy ride) in a way few in the region really are.

Despite the defiant sentimentality of its ads, Chrysler, as well, is selective about its commitment to the city of Detroit.

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A couple of car-related ads in heavy NFL rotation caught my attention mostly for their emphasis, intended or not, on car-free transportation.

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.

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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.

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Car sales are up, auto shows are packing them in, and the GM IPO was oversubscribed, but there may be no surer indicator of the auto industry’s recovery than the renewed avalanche of car ads rumbling across every medium. And there’s no better way to get a glimpse of what a born-again car culture might look like than to stay on the couch for a spell, un-mute the TV, and watch—that’s right, on purpose—a sample of 2010’s ads selling us our car-centric way of life. Here are some of the year’s most egregious attempts to get us into the dealership by conflating car ownership with American values.

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.

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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.

It looks like one car maker has figured out an intriguing way to market its product to a city audience: Just don't show it at all. In fact, try to sell it by appealing to the innate desire for the very qualities your product squeezes out of city neighborhoods.

That's what Nissan has done with its New York City promotion for the Leaf, an electric car slated for mass production later this year. Nissan marketing teams hit the streets earlier this week with a faux Park(ing) Day concept. Instead of filling curbside space with sod and benches, they put out some bucket seats and signs pointing to journey-to-zero.com, a flash site that I found too irritating to navigate.

As far as I can tell, this attempt to sell cars by co-opting one of the signature awareness-building strategies of the livable streets movement does not display any actual cars, or even show the image of a Nissan Leaf. It's a car-free PR campaign for cars.

(Obligatory disclaimers: Replacing internal combustion with electric batteries is great. But the zero emissions hype is way overblown, the city-destroying space-hogging problem doesn't disappear with the fossil-fuel powered engines, and electric cars can be driven just as recklessly as conventional cars.)

Apparently, the promoters got a few people to sit in these things when they rolled them out on Wednesday. But really, they need to absorb a few lessons from the Park(ing) Day masters. The sitting arrangement inside a car is inherently anti-social. Staring at a headrest and the back of someone's scalp just doesn't translate to an urban public space.

Maybe that's why the people organizing this campaign also felt compelled to hire some folks to hand out flowers. You need a little public space programming to give people a reason to stop and memorize the journey-to-zero URL.

If you want to see one of these set-ups for yourself, the Nissan promoters will be putting out their bucket seats again all day tomorrow. They have 20 spots reserved. I don't have the exact locations but I'm told there will be four each at Union Square, the Bowery, SoHo, and Tribeca. No word yet on how much the city got paid for all this highly desirable curbside real estate.

So I think it's time to coin a phrase. What's the livable streets equivalent of greenwashing?

You might have seen it making the rounds over the last couple of days -- the new Mercedes ad in which a bike messenger challenges a driver in one of the company's luxury vehicles to a race from Harlem to the Fulton Ferry landing in Brooklyn.

There are many irritating things about the ad, including the lousy acting and the roundabout route the car takes (why the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and not the FDR?). At more than seven minutes (it's in two parts on YouTube), it's also tediously long.

But worst is the perpetuation of that old stereotype, the "maniac" bike rider. The driver says at the beginning that he thinks the contest will be unfair: "Sure, he gets to ride like a bat out of hell and we have to follow the traffic rules."

And of course, that's the way it goes. No doubt, the risk-taking footage is fun to watch, and some local blogs have posted favorably about the ad (even Bike Snob NYC is mild in his critique).

But Mikael Colville-Andersen at Copenhagenize has it right when he says the Mercedes spot is an effective attack on the idea that riding a bicycle in a major city could ever be comfortable or normal:

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