That Buick jingle really got to me, it was like a time machine back to when I was a tiny kid. My two favorite classic vehicle related commercials will always be oh what a feeling Toyota, we build excitement Pontiac and "Raaaaaaiiiiiiiineeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrbeeeeeeeerrrrrrr"
As noted, "Heartbeat of America" and "Like a Rock" were also great jingles, instantly recognizable and perfectly hit their demographics of middle class, midwestern America. GM really had their promotions on point in the late 80s!
I'm a firm believer that the "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" campaign around this time contributed to the long, slow downfall of Olds. The trouble was, my father's Olds was actually a lot more exciting and enjoyable to drive than anything Olds made in the 80's, or for that matter, anything they made from that point until the end. I don't think trying to cut ties with their past resulted in any points being made with their intended audience.
The problem with that ad campaign was that it was false advertising. The lineup was still full of whites an wires 98s and 88s, woodside wagon and boxy sedans....
I used to think it was silly to kill off Olds Pontiac Saturn & for a few years Camaro(obumma/mcginty socialist govt interference)…. I dwelled on the 60s to mid 70s Cutlass, GrPrix and other notably great cars like the ‘77 to ‘79 iBonneville….. But if you think about the truly terrible & unremarkable flops (sometimes looked good but mostly atrocious serviceability/reliability with a perfect example being the aurora a-horror) that gm burned their customers with in the 80s 90s & 2000s it becomes clear that “mercy killing” (what “kanadstan”s immoral imbecile fiberal commie castro trudope pushes as a solution to his healthcare crisis as “maid” aka “medically assisted involuntary death” aka euthanasia aka murder aka genocide of the infirm) was really the only practical option. “maid” is truly evil when practiced on people but when the sickly patient is an inanimate burdensome & ineffectual corporate division then “don’t cry for me “ar-gm-tina” lol….. Good Riddance. And for those deeply depressed with nostalgia, “for a few dollars more” say maybe $3,500usd You should be able to find a mint ‘77 Cutlass Supreme or GrandPrix SJ Coupe with a 4bbl BiigBlock, FE3 Suspension, Rally Wheels & Guage Cluster, Swivel Buckets etc in a truly striking colour like frost blue/white int. or dark burgundy….. just stay away from the shoddy outsourced t-tops and stick with the classy power sunroof….. the engines can be tweaked with unobtrusive throttle-body injection, 60s timing gears, and with dual exhausts & OEM Catalysts they’ll run cleanly & efficiently with tire churning thrust while providing ride handling comfort safety reliability & style so far superior to anything made since (CrownVictoria GrMarquis TownCar & rwd Thunderbird Cougar Mk2dr being the ONLY exceptions and they were axed in 2011). The latest generation of pony cars might drive well but any as soon as a ‘69 Mach1 or TransAm pulls alongside you’ll feel like a bridesmaid wallflower on the depreciation shafting plan…… : ( The last generation Continental EcoBoost (a rare few got suicide doors) is an amazing car that’s cursed with horribly bland “camry” ext. design. A mint MkX Lincoln might provide a trickle of gratification, and some of the recent rwd caddies may lure with a facade of edgy design but in the caddy’s case run & hide…!!!! “ar-gm-tina” is a veritable venezuela when it comes to quality control…. stir in all the latest “hi-tech” and you’ve got a nightmare that will leave you begging for maid euthanasia…. : ( imo gm should have left to bankruptcy, Magna would’ve snatched up Saturn and anything viable would have been absorbed by better run co.s like Ford Toyota or Bmw with few if any jobs lost…. and Good Riddance to gm’s ivory tower idiots..!!!!
Hi Adam, that last Pontiac commercial looks like it was shot in Toronto. (Sam the Record Man, Youge Street Toronto). I worked as a production designer on a number of Pontiac commercials in the mid and late eighties. One in particular used a variation of "The Heat is On" sound track with a Pontiac making a grand entrance through a huge opening made from top lit lucite rods onto a black marble floor. And the floor was real marble tiles which had to be glued to the sound stage floor to allow the car to make it's dramatic entrance. After the commercial was finished a couple of Bobcats were used to scrape the marble tiles off the deck. I'd have to dig up my old drawings but as I recall the set was approximately 40' x 80'...what a waste.
The Pontiac jingle was SO catchy and MTV-like, that we actually had versions of it on the cassette tapes of favorite songs that we'd record off of the radio... even though I had a Cutlass, still liked the driving tune and mojo of the song! I would add the "Chevrolet Camaro, IROC -Z" also was a great ad. That and the Pontiac ads really reached to me as a teen to want those cars! I'm sure they were on heavy rotation on MTV, and probably saw them 1000s of times, but they were so slick and well produced and orchestrated, they fit right in with the channel and the demographic!
I like your list Adam. However one of my top ad campaigns that I would have personally added was Chevy’s “Heartbeat of America” campaign of the late 80s…in particular the ones featuring Aretha Franklin.
If memory serves...GM did a big ad campaign buy for the last episode of the tv series MASH which aired February 28th 1983. Among the ads was the "scifi" Corvette ad..among other ads for Chevy and the other divisions and the amount of investment GM has poured into product development in the early 1980s. Considering it was replacing a design that debuted in 1968 and refreshed in 78 and 80...I suppose they had to show a very high tech theme for it. In a way...this was a sign we were exiting the malaise era...performance was starting to come back..and we were saying goodbye to a long running tv show that had been on the air for almost 11 years. I remember more about the car tv commercials than the plot of MASH which shows how much of a car nerd I am.
Yup, your memory is spot-on! Memorable for me in part because I was taking a high school sociology class at the time and the same day it aired the teacher said if we watched this ending episode we were going to see ads above and beyond the usual mundane stuff (with major money spent on 'em too of course, maybe more in common with Super Bowl ads than your usual M*A*S*H episode) and yeah I remember the episode, and the commercials aired with it, very well! Off the topic of these commercials it was a pretty intense episode too, hadn't seen it again until very recently as it's not normally aired in syndication, and my wife who's a big fan of that TV show told me it was loosely based on a tragically true story. But back to the ads, yeah I remember all these well, loved the last Pontiac ad the most, maybe one of my favorite car ads next to those old Joe Isuzu ads and the Mitsubishi Eclipse ad using the song "in the Meantime". And yes the dreaded Citation ad in particular defines the term "ear worm". DAMMIT! I thought I'd finally recovered from it and now some 40 years later tomorrow at work I'll probably be hearing that damned jingle in my head again, "CHEVY CITAAAAAAAAAATION"! But I'm gonna say it's not the worst car commercial by far, that would have to be the OTHER Mitsubishi Eclipse ad, the one with the girl dancing in the car, an ad so bad that it was parodied!
Thanks for the video, I love these classic ads. My favorite Cadillac ad of all time is for the 85 Eldorado, which starts out with a country club valet parking a 67 Eldorado and shows the man, all grown up, driving his 85 model, living the dream. It ends with him passing the keys to the new young valet. It shows the fact that most people who buy prestige cars make the purchase decision at a young age and reminds us that they will buy that Cadillac 20 years later as long as it's still similar. Unfortunately while Porsche knows this with the 911, Cadillac and Jaguar have nothing at the end of the rainbow for those who waited and saved
Great trip down memory lane. I disagree with the Corvette as being one of the worst. It couldn’t be more 80’s... and I loved it as a kid. Thanks for all the great entertainment in 2022, Adam
I can’t begin to describe the rush of memories and nostalgia that flooded my brain upon hearing the Buick and Cadillac jingles. Those jingles were a big part of the background soundtrack of my childhood!
For the (bad/lousy) Corvette commercial, I think the band Queen have a strong case against GM for stealing their melody to Flash Gordon. Thanks for the great content.
Please do a video on the 4+3 manual transmission. I've heard a little about it, but I've never heard it explained in any kind of detail. That would be a great video for people like me.
As a former dealer, I had several of these that had the 4+3 and, like many things, the problems were vastly overstated. Just because George, Elmer and Clyde say that they're junk doesn't mean it is true. That same trio (George, Elmer and Clyde) also declared the Quadrajet and Cross-Fire Injection to be junk, too. After they were done condemning the products, they went back to work at the warehouse.
The 87-88 Chevy Beretta campaign and launch commercials was one of the best that I can remember. I was a teen then and still remember that commercial and how cool the Beretta looked coming out of the water! The shape was revolutionary - we need some of that out of the box thinking at a reasonable price like back then! The Beretta, Starion/Conquest and the initial Mitsubishi Eclipse were some of the best wow factor cars!
I remembered when Buick introduced the all new smaller Regal for 78... I was a young teen and my parents had a 76 Regal coupe in which I loved .. and the 78 Regal ad .. a little science , a little magic with the smoke and all was just amazing to me .. and I still remembered it today !!
I had an internship at DMB&B the Bloomfield Hills Ad agency in 1989 that had the Pontiac and Cadillac accounts and I remember the Cadillac Style campaign, but the real star was The Pontiac We Build Excitement campaign, to me their best campaign ever.
As I recall, the full version of the Citation jingle used in other commercials had an extra verse at the end and sounded better. The Citation was so new and innovative by GM standards. From a features standpoint, Chevrolet had a lot to talk about with this car and the commercial reflects this. The funky sounding music may sound dated today was popular during that time. This commercial was sort of a "cousin" to the 1977 Chevrolet commercial with the tagline "Now that's more like it". I suspect that at least some of the same advertising people were involved in both campaigns. Beginning especially in the 1990's, the use of jingles in all forms of advertising began to decrease. Commercials with jingles sound dated today but were the norm when I was growing up.
In 1980, I was 27, had just become a father and had bought a Dodge Omni to get 4 doors in a small car package. None of these ad campaigns did anything for me...then (even aspirationally) or now.
I remember all those commercials from back then. I always liked the “We build excitement “ themed Pontiac ones and yes they tended to make me want a GTA trans am even more!
'Cadillac Style' was a catchier song and slogan but 'Best of all.. It's a Cadillac' wasn't bad, by any means. It certainly didn't deserve to be on the "worst" list. And it was on it because he didn't know what it meant?? What?? LOL For many people, Cadillac was the best! It was the Standard of the World. The Fleetwood Brougham De' Elegance was a classy dream car all through the 80's and early 90's. They're fondly remembered and nice ones can sell for big $$$, these days.
Excellent video Adam. Good choices. I liked the Cadillac and Pontiac and Buick themes from that time. The buyers connected with them and they sold cars. Marketing was indeed important. A Special Feel in an Oldsmobile sold a lot of Oldsmobiles to a point in the 1980's. Things as you know started going sound around 1987-1988 time frame. Great effort and information Adam. I hope you will do more.
Adam what a fun watch, you're one of the best. The 80's was the best decade ever, my three cars that got me through the 80's was a 55 Chevy pickup, 65 Ford two door wagon and a 65 GT350. Still have the GT350.
The "Best of all it's a Cadillac" seems more a brand than a vehicle advertisement, presumably no matter the quality of the car, it was a better choice than say a Lincoln and would have been better if the car was driven away than sitting there. Great idea Adam.
That Corvette commercial reminds me of the Styx song "Mr. Roboto", which was a hit in 1983, so maybe it was on their minds when they wrote the music for the commercial. And you missed two of GM's most successful ad campaigns of the late '80s/early '90s -- "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" and "Cheverolet, the Heartbeat of America". Although, I think they were more focused on slogans than jingles. Those were right up there with "Have you driven a Ford lately?" in pop culture at the time.
I like that '84 Corvette commercial. The only reason you might think it is "super funky" is because you're viewing it through a 2022 lens. Through a 1984 lens, that looked like a really good ad, I say. On the other hand, I certainly agree about your "best" ads. Those three are all great commercials I remember fondly!
Hi Adam. I truly enjoy all of your videos. Always learning something interesting. I have to disagree, though, on the Best of all it's a Cadillac commercial because I loved this one at the time. Maybe it was because I really liked the lineup during that era. In my mind the idea was to convey that not only were these luxurious, status symbol cars, but they were also Cadillacs - I guess as opposed to Buicks or Oldsmobiles, or maybe Lincolns - and therefore were special. The Cadillac Style commercials were catchy and otherwise effective, but the lineup was so weak that it didn't matter. And yes, the Corvette commercial gave me nightmares! Looking forward to your next video.
Adam, I'm not a specialist in Marketing, but I think Cadillac was focused on lifestyle, that's why the polo game. The qualities of the car are implicit. That's why they don't talk about numbers, this is for lesser divisions, with a popular appeal.
I agree. At one time, I wouldn't have called the 1980's the "good old days," but compared to the world we live in today, that's kind of what they seem like.
I would say we were on a comfortable slide downhill. Until the beginning of 2021. I’d have to say this is probably the worst decade since the Great Depression.
How in the world did "Special Feel in an Oldsmobile" not make the list? That was truly the brand at its best before completely losing its way in the later part of the decade.
"We build excitement" - I have that on my license plate frame on my 84 fiero. Agreed Pontiac really captured that "excitement" in terms of auto design during that period.
Great memories there for sure. I don’t agree with you about the ‘84 Corvette commercial but I do agree with you concerning the late ‘80s Cadillac commercials. “The only way to travel is Cadillac style” was iconic! I also didn’t care for the annoying, screaming, grating vocals of the Pontiac ads of the late ‘80s. I’ve ALWAYS hated them. They’re trying too hard. Pontiac was a classic and iconic brand that, IMO, deserved better than pandering to the god awful pop syntho music of the late ‘80s. I love your work and opinions and thoughtful reflections from these great decades of automobiles gone by. Please keep them coming 😊
With that capitalization "Lily White" looks like a proper name. "Lily" is either a very old lady or a little girl, it seems nobody born between the mid-1940s and mid-2010s has that name.
Hi Adam, long time watcher but first time commenter (I typically watch your videos on our Roku TV which has my daughter's account, not mine, and it's impossible to comment on the TV :) The '84 corvette commercial reminds me of Tron more so than Star Wars, and I actually liked it. The Buick and Pontiac commercials in your top 3 I remember quite well from my teenage years. Just look at the styling on all those Buicks in that commercial... they were beautiful cars. I know this was a best/worst of GM commercials, but if you do one for the other domestics you have to add the early 80's Dodge/Plymouth "Colt 5x5... by Mitsubishi" commercial. I hated it at the time but it has obviously stuck with me.
The best campaigns leaned into the 80’s hard. Good content. Can’t wait for hear about Rocks and hotdogs in future videos. Also… I expect a documentary on Mrs Shore and her effort to push Chevys. 😉
That's *MISS* Shore to you, and *that* was the way to sell cars! Even if you weren't a Chevy fan, you probably knew all the words to the song! (..and long after they dropped the song, they used the slogan! *That's* a successful ad campaign!)
I love how the Seville is just parked on the grass at the polo club or whatever it is, right in front of everyone. They're probably all thinking, "That guy with that new Seville is a total d-bag!"
LOL But it works because it's telling the customers, if they get an expensive Seville, they can park wherever the hell they want! People will know they're First Class and will treat them as such.
Some thoughts... The Corvette advertisement has a "Knight Rider" feel to it. The Citation advertisement: thought of this immediately when I read the topic of this video, given your prior highlight of the Citation. The Seville advertisement: when you mentioned Cadillac, Adam, I immediately thought of the ads for the Catera with the ending of "Who is Lisa Catera?" The Buick advertisement: LOVE it, particularly with the tagline of "the great American road belongs to Buick". The Cadillac advertisement: LOVE it, too, particularly "the only way to travel is Cadillac style". The Pontiac advertisement: LOVE it, as well, definite catchy tune ... with some "hints" at KITT, it seems.
Adam,love your videos.Citation brings back memories of drivers ed in high school.Flooring it on the DC beltway as the instructor is screaming take it easy and the 3 fellow students in the back were white as sheats scared.Mike the Greek
Hands down, I think the best ad campaign GM ever did was the “Like A Rock” run they did with Chevy trucks and Bob Seger - but I don’t think that started until the 90’s……??? Other ad campaigns that were very memorable to me were the “See the U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet” from the 50’s and the “Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet” from the 70’s! To be honest, the only campaign I can think of that was memorable to me from the 80’s were the “Mr. Goodwrench” parts and service ads (especially in print form) that featured General Chuck Yeager…….🤔 Be interesting to see what you come up with as your favorites!
I really liked “The Heartbeat of America - That’s Today’s Chevrolet” campaign. Also “Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet”. My 1992 S10 Tahoe pickup came with a cassette tape that started with “The Heartbeat of America” song. Loved it!
I always liked the "That's more like it!" campaign for the '77 Impala and Caprice. It was one of the only ads I can name that subtly admitted that the previous year's model wasn't quite what the public wanted.
There's a great ad from 1985 or 86 for the Cutlass Supreme, it's driving along a beach with the tagline "You only catch one like this once in a lifetime". Probably my favorite GM ad from the 80s
I was looking for a response that pointed that out before I would. That must be to emphasize the front wheel drive. The Citation was Chevy's first front wheel drive car (ffwd?)
Excellent and thoughtful analysis as always. You remark that Ford and Chrysler did not have many jingles in the 80s, but as a very young boy in the 80s I thought Fords were called "Ford Latelys" because of "Have you driven a Ford, lately?" So something was working.
I was going to add the "Like A Rock", but others have commented it was 1990s not 80s. A couple others I liked were the Buick Regal Grand National ads with "Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood (sp?). Another favorite Buick campaign I think may have been early 80s was the "Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?" jingle and campaign, very catchy.
I had heard a story about Like a Rock. Sieger didn’t want them to use it but it tested off the charts in focus groups and they talked him into it because they said it would sell American trucks and save jobs. Now THAT’S persuasion.
I was in my 20s. We felt like we were advertised at. Such fake excitement. So loud. Not just GM, but it’s a great example. Thanks for another good one Adam.
As a Buick fan I have always been fond of the “Great American Road” ads as well as the “Wouldn’t You Really Rather Have A Buick” ads that were featured from the 60’s up to the 80’s. These were better times both for Buick and the US in general. I didn’t care much for the “That’s Not a Buick” ads from about a decade ago.
Man, hearing that Buick commercial brought back a flood of memories, watching Thunder Cats or Bionic 6 or some other cartoon after school in the late 80s :)
Great video but in my opinion the very worst ad's of the eighties were by FAR the "This is not your Fathers Oldsmobile". They really made the wrong call with that coming off the best selling Oldsmobile's of all time and starting the rather quick fall to the whole division going away. Seems to me that what the public really wanted was Dad's Olds. You can't just cast off One hundred years of automobiles and re-invent yourself over night.
If you ever do a video on Chrysler ads of the 80’s you must include the infamous 1984 Plymouth Turismo Duster “cocaine factory” ad. Best jingle ever and packed with every 1980’s cliche they could think of.
Pontiac also made use of ‘The Pontiac Girl’, a stunning brunette discovered in their assembly line staff, in their print ads in the ‘80s. ‘Natalie’ something iirc
Good choices, Adam. Like John H. below, I also remember the Chevrolet "Heartbeat of America" ads from the '80s with fondness, and specifically the ones featuring the Celebrity, and would put this one in the winner list as well as the ones you selected. I couldn't help but notice that in none of these ads, women are still featured only as supporting roles - rarely the driver - and no minority individuals are used as actors.
I'm an absolute sucker for these old ads, and even tacky jingles are sorta familiar and comforting in today's world, where so many ads use generic uninspired lofi hip hop instrumentals or slowed down pop/rock songs. I am one of those people who enjoy disco, so I really love the Citation ad. It's dripping in late 70s musical cues and it just speaks to me. Also, while lacking substance, best of all it's a Cadillac has always stuck with me. The Cadillac style jingle and ad was a big step up, managing to be much more contemporary than that bland country club setting earlier. It's so nice to see these late 80s Cadillacs, even if it's just in ads. They used to be everywhere and now they're totally gone.
I think the same reasons that people were hit with positive vibes about Chevrolet during their 'see the U.S.A. in your chevrolet' were why 'the Great American Road belongs to Buick' was such a hit as a jingle. It's an American car with history and heritage and even if they weren't always the best built cars, meant something special to the people who bought the brands or stayed loyal to them. Definitely perfect ad campaigns in that regard. Pontiac started off with the calmer, slower 'we...build...excite...ment' ads a few years earlier and Pontiac was indeed doing most of the right things for their customer base at the time. The Cadillac Style campaign was short but I always enjoyed listening to the song. As others have noted, one of the WORST 80s ad campaigns was 'this is not your father's oldsmobile'. Yeah, great way to piss people off who LOVED their father's oldsmobiles and that with the new olds cars they were basically getting 'leftover' designs from other division projects (or at least it FELT like that). I CRINGE at the thought of the one with William Shatner pretending to be Kirk and saying 'steady as she goes' and his real life daughter blasts off down the road in the cutlass supreme with the wraparound rear window. I would love to hear John Manoogian's (or whoever was the lead on the Old's design team) perspective talking about why Oldsmobile was failing heavily at some of it's designs during the same time Pontiac and Buick were consistently hitting it out of the park.
Pontiac is the brand I miss the most as well. They were heading in the same muscle car direction as Dodge. The GTO probably would’ve been given a retro redesign and the G8 would’ve also gone more muscular to compete with the Challenger. Imagine all of the high-powered variants they’d have out today… albeit, they’d likely be looking to some sort of electrification (given the climate of today). Cadillac is definitely moving into the ultra-luxury realm with the $300k+ Celestiq; leaving a lot of room for the others to become even more distinctive. I wish it could’ve worked out better for the brands that aren’t around anymore. If only GM hadn’t done so much blatant badge engineering and focused on just making each division even more distinctive (with no questions as to what the car competed with). If that meant paring each division down to 3-4 vehicles, so be it. This is just a little fun and quick imagining of GM in 2023 (given they never got rid of Oldsmobile and were able to keep some their brands after 2009): Cadillac: Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes-Maybach, … GMC: keep doing what’s been working and that’s making upscale versions of Chevrolet trucks (with a larger gap between Chevrolet’s top model and GMC’s entry level ones; except on the work trucks… which I also feel they could just streamline to one division but I understand the marketing logic behind having both), … along with high-end EV trucks, … Buick: Lexus, Genesis, Volvo, … with the revival of a gorgeous coupe and sedan… (that would have some potential Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz buyers cross-shopping them)… Overall, having Buick perfectly positioned with Lexus, Genesis, Volvo, … Oldsmobile or Saturn: full-EV brand with the Aurora (or a similarly sized car) as the main competitor to the Tesla Model S or, for Saturn, reviving the EV1 nomenclature… for example: EV3, EV5, EV7, EV-X (because, crossover 😐), … Pontiac: NO SUVs… just 3 or 4 muscle cars to be right there with the Dodge Challenger, Charger, and the like Chevrolet: the everyday car, truck, crossover, van (at least one minivan to compete with Chrysler, Kia, Honda, and Toyota), and SUV - with exceptional build quality and more emotional - yet distinctly American - designs than Honda or Toyota, …
Its Ironic the Seville is included in this video because I actually in the open, saw one for sale near a gas station yesterday with my dad, and I have ever only seen 1 of those! I will say they had some creativity back then, albeit compared with today they did seem to have some zing to em. Well done on the video!
A very interesting stroll down memory lane. The point I walk away with from all of these ads is that GM was essentially selling a banding exercise, not specific merits or values of the particular models. This was a common theme of the 1980s, when companies used advertising to sell products based on how the purchaser would feel from the purchase (ego) or how the purchaser was expected to visually impress other people by being seen with the product (personal image expressed to others). The ads use fast cuts between a jumble of images and high-strung music to encourage car sales, but were really not about the merits of the cars themselves. It was all about puffery/hype, a very 1980s exhibition of style-over substance. I would contrast all of these TV ads with the popular song by Ronnie and the Daytonas from the late 1960s, "Little GTO", which tells the story of a guy who's obviously proud of his Pontiac GTO muscle car, equipped with a 389-cubic-inch V8 and a 4-speed. That song sings the praises of a single car, of course, but it has more substance to it than all six of the 1980s GM corporate ads, which come across as dreadfully hyped music videos. Honestly, the best ad of the six was the 1980 Citation, which, even through the fog of all that puffery, at least gives you a very brief idea of what the new car is about and what you can expect. (Even if the idea of stuffing five people into a compact Citation is pretty ridiculous.)
Oh man was I in love with that Corvette and that dashboard display that was everything at the time. I was in seventh grade when that car came out. One was on display in our local mall and I spent a lot of time admiring that car.
I remember a St. Louis Chevy dealer did a commercial to the tune of the 1980 Chevy Citation jingle: "Here comes a Chevy dealer like you've never seen... A dealer selling a whole new kind of driving machine (Chevy by Milner!) A whole new kind of dealer with the people and the pride A dealer with a difference--and the cars you want to drive (Chevy by Milner!)... Get the best offer on a Chevy, from the best people you can find-- Get the best offer on a Chevy, this could be the car you have in mind-- CHEVY BY MILLLLLL-NER!" I remember this commercial because the radio station for which I worked at that time had a trade-out agreement with this Chevy dealer to provide vehicles for the station's use. The dealer went out of business a couple of years after that!
Pontiac was definitely in its second “good times” in the mid 80’s into the mid 90’s. They had brought together two main buying groups with the same brand image; first was the buyers who still resonated with the greatest decade for Pontiac (60’s) along with those who wanted that BMW look without the price. They had excellent styling to match the brand image until the late 90’s when (just like happened in the early 70’s) the style of each redesign was a disaster. This was followed by a gutting of the mainstream models and a failure to get brand appropriate SUV’s and trucks.
The Chevy "Like a Rock" commercial was fantastic! But that was the 90s. But in the late 80s GMC had a catchy jungle: It's Not Just a Truck Anymore! Well done.
Weird as the Corvette commercial was, I was just surprised to see a Corvette commercial at all! I could be wrong, but I’ve never personally seen another commercial for a Corvette since that, for any generation.
Excellent selection! The Seville ad seemed the most preposterous. By1985 the Polo set was driving Benz's, Beemers and Jags. Cadillac's demographic had narrowed to septuagenarians and pimps.
I enjoyed it .. and must agree 100 % that I loved the Pontiac ads. The Grand Am from the mid 80's into the 90's car and ads made me look at one and almost buy one during the 80's and 90's.. however a dealing with a bad salesman made me buy another car. The F series trucks sold between 600,000 and 900,000 for many years (not just 450,000) .... and note the Citation was introduced in April 1979 as a 1980 model ..so they made the 80 Citation for 1. 5 years ...also the 800,000 units was production not sales.. the Citation did hit around 350,000 sales in 1979 and 1980 (79 sales data included some 79 Novas that were still being sold in the first part of 1979). Actually the Oldsmobile Cutlass /Cutlass Supreme outsold the Citation in 1979 and 1980..81,82,83,84,etc
I actually love that 1984 Corvette commercial. Then again I'm a huge C4 Corvette fan. Very advanced car for it's day. Ahead of it's time. Owned a 93 40th anniversary six speed LT1 Z07 suspension car for 13.5 years. Loved that car. I'm not that old at 35 but as I was coming of age the C4 and C5 where the Corvettes.
The first Corvette ad wants to be STAR WARS, KNIGHT RIDER and TRON, but GM/Chevy had reason to brag because it was the beginning of a great new era for the model. They played that Citation jingle to death, esp. when you include all the radio ads! The three ads you liked I thought were cliched and silly, though a point to Pontiac for including a pizzeria sign in one scene.
Never in million years would I have thought when I was an adult I would be watching car ads from my youth on my phone.
How about Pontiac and Oldsmobile. Not even being made any more. ?
What’s odd, is that I don’t remember any of these and I was in my 30’s during most of this decade.
I hear ya.
@@CSltz Nor is SATURN.
That Buick jingle really got to me, it was like a time machine back to when I was a tiny kid. My two favorite classic vehicle related commercials will always be oh what a feeling Toyota, we build excitement Pontiac and "Raaaaaaiiiiiiiineeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrbeeeeeeeerrrrrrr"
As noted, "Heartbeat of America" and "Like a Rock" were also great jingles, instantly recognizable and perfectly hit their demographics of middle class, midwestern America.
GM really had their promotions on point in the late 80s!
“Like a Rock”
@@timothykeith1367 We used to say the Heart beat of America that's yesterday's Chevrolet!!!!!.
Oh yeah!!!! “ The Like a Rock” jingle was absolutely the Best!!!!
"Flash! Ah-ah! Saviour of the universe." That's what came to mind during the entire Corvette commercial.
Totally Flash Gordan all the way.
I knew I wasn't the only one!
I'm a firm believer that the "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" campaign around this time contributed to the long, slow downfall of Olds. The trouble was, my father's Olds was actually a lot more exciting and enjoyable to drive than anything Olds made in the 80's, or for that matter, anything they made from that point until the end. I don't think trying to cut ties with their past resulted in any points being made with their intended audience.
I agree -that slogan was the beginning of the end. I did have a thing for the mid-80’s Hurst Olds though.
Opposite is true. The problem with that campaign was that they were still building your father’s Oldsmobile when they ran it
@@rodger7029 I think the problem was the slogan pointed out an issue that wasn’t really a thing til they drew attention to it.
The problem with that ad campaign was that it was false advertising. The lineup was still full of whites an wires 98s and 88s, woodside wagon and boxy sedans....
I used to think it was silly to kill off Olds Pontiac Saturn & for a few years Camaro(obumma/mcginty socialist govt interference)….
I dwelled on the 60s to mid 70s Cutlass, GrPrix and other notably great cars like the ‘77 to ‘79 iBonneville…..
But if you think about the truly terrible & unremarkable flops (sometimes looked good but mostly atrocious serviceability/reliability with a perfect example being the aurora a-horror) that gm burned their customers with in the 80s 90s & 2000s it becomes clear that “mercy killing” (what “kanadstan”s immoral imbecile fiberal commie castro trudope pushes as a solution to his healthcare crisis as “maid” aka “medically assisted involuntary death” aka euthanasia aka murder aka genocide of the infirm) was really the only practical option.
“maid” is truly evil when practiced on people but when the sickly patient is an inanimate burdensome & ineffectual corporate division then “don’t cry for me “ar-gm-tina” lol…..
Good Riddance.
And for those deeply depressed with nostalgia, “for a few dollars more” say maybe $3,500usd You should be able to find a mint ‘77 Cutlass Supreme or GrandPrix SJ Coupe with a 4bbl BiigBlock, FE3 Suspension, Rally Wheels & Guage Cluster, Swivel Buckets etc in a truly striking colour like frost blue/white int. or dark burgundy….. just stay away from the shoddy outsourced t-tops and stick with the classy power sunroof…..
the engines can be tweaked with unobtrusive throttle-body injection, 60s timing gears, and with dual exhausts & OEM Catalysts they’ll run cleanly & efficiently with tire churning thrust while providing ride handling comfort safety reliability & style so far superior to anything made since (CrownVictoria GrMarquis TownCar & rwd Thunderbird Cougar Mk2dr being the ONLY exceptions and they were axed in 2011).
The latest generation of pony cars might drive well but any as soon as a ‘69 Mach1 or TransAm pulls alongside you’ll feel like a bridesmaid wallflower on the depreciation shafting plan…… : (
The last generation Continental EcoBoost (a rare few got suicide doors) is an amazing car that’s cursed with horribly bland “camry” ext. design.
A mint MkX Lincoln might provide a trickle of gratification, and some of the recent rwd caddies may lure with a facade of edgy design but in the caddy’s case run & hide…!!!!
“ar-gm-tina” is a veritable venezuela when it comes to quality control…. stir in all the latest “hi-tech” and you’ve got a nightmare that will leave you begging for maid euthanasia…. : (
imo gm should have left to bankruptcy, Magna would’ve snatched up Saturn and anything viable would have been absorbed by better run co.s like Ford Toyota or Bmw with few if any jobs lost…. and Good Riddance to gm’s ivory tower idiots..!!!!
Hi Adam, that last Pontiac commercial looks like it was shot in Toronto. (Sam the Record Man, Youge Street Toronto).
I worked as a production designer on a number of Pontiac commercials in the mid and late eighties.
One in particular used a variation of "The Heat is On" sound track with a Pontiac making a grand entrance through a huge opening made from top lit lucite rods onto a black marble floor.
And the floor was real marble tiles which had to be glued to the sound stage floor to allow the car to make it's dramatic entrance.
After the commercial was finished a couple of Bobcats were used to scrape the marble tiles off the deck.
I'd have to dig up my old drawings but as I recall the set was approximately 40' x 80'...what a waste.
Wow. Very cool!
In the 80’s I lived near Toronto, and can agree that that final Pontiac ad was played in our market a lot.
Leave the marble, take the Bobcats.
This Pontiac ad did remind me of 80s era solo Glen Frey.
Yup, the shot near the beginning of the ad with the Firebird parked near an overpass is the east end of the Gardiner Expressway.
Cadillac’s ad agency of the mid-80s sure loved its polo and equestrian events in general.
I was 8 years old when the Citation came out and I totally remember the Chevy Ci-taaaaaay-tion jingle. 😁
The Pontiac jingle was SO catchy and MTV-like, that we actually had versions of it on the cassette tapes of favorite songs that we'd record off of the radio... even though I had a Cutlass, still liked the driving tune and mojo of the song!
I would add the "Chevrolet Camaro, IROC -Z" also was a great ad.
That and the Pontiac ads really reached to me as a teen to want those cars!
I'm sure they were on heavy rotation on MTV, and probably saw them 1000s of times, but they were so slick and well produced and orchestrated, they fit right in with the channel and the demographic!
Always enjoyed the “Cadillac Style” series of ads. I’m sure the annoyed lady in the Allante passing that Mercedes was fun for them to film.
I like your list Adam. However one of my top ad campaigns that I would have personally added was Chevy’s “Heartbeat of America” campaign of the late 80s…in particular the ones featuring Aretha Franklin.
The "Like a Rock" ad campaign was also very effective.
Like a Rock. Bob Segar schilling trucks to the C & W crowd.
The "Like a Rock" ads were really good, but they weren't part of the '80s. That was around 2004 if I remember correctly.
@@kenhollis9591 they started in the late 80s/early 90s with the gmt 400s
I agree the Heartbeat of America Chevrolet ads deserve at least an honorable mention. The Like a Rock ads started in the early 90s from what I recall.
If memory serves...GM did a big ad campaign buy for the last episode of the tv series MASH which aired February 28th 1983. Among the ads was the "scifi" Corvette ad..among other ads for Chevy and the other divisions and the amount of investment GM has poured into product development in the early 1980s. Considering it was replacing a design that debuted in 1968 and refreshed in 78 and 80...I suppose they had to show a very high tech theme for it. In a way...this was a sign we were exiting the malaise era...performance was starting to come back..and we were saying goodbye to a long running tv show that had been on the air for almost 11 years.
I remember more about the car tv commercials than the plot of MASH which shows how much of a car nerd I am.
Yup, your memory is spot-on! Memorable for me in part because I was taking a high school sociology class at the time and the same day it aired the teacher said if we watched this ending episode we were going to see ads above and beyond the usual mundane stuff (with major money spent on 'em too of course, maybe more in common with Super Bowl ads than your usual M*A*S*H episode) and yeah I remember the episode, and the commercials aired with it, very well! Off the topic of these commercials it was a pretty intense episode too, hadn't seen it again until very recently as it's not normally aired in syndication, and my wife who's a big fan of that TV show told me it was loosely based on a tragically true story. But back to the ads, yeah I remember all these well, loved the last Pontiac ad the most, maybe one of my favorite car ads next to those old Joe Isuzu ads and the Mitsubishi Eclipse ad using the song "in the Meantime". And yes the dreaded Citation ad in particular defines the term "ear worm". DAMMIT! I thought I'd finally recovered from it and now some 40 years later tomorrow at work I'll probably be hearing that damned jingle in my head again, "CHEVY CITAAAAAAAAAATION"! But I'm gonna say it's not the worst car commercial by far, that would have to be the OTHER Mitsubishi Eclipse ad, the one with the girl dancing in the car, an ad so bad that it was parodied!
I heard that Citation ad back in 1980 and it STILL resides in my brain.
Thanks for the video, I love these classic ads. My favorite Cadillac ad of all time is for the 85 Eldorado, which starts out with a country club valet parking a 67 Eldorado and shows the man, all grown up, driving his 85 model, living the dream. It ends with him passing the keys to the new young valet. It shows the fact that most people who buy prestige cars make the purchase decision at a young age and reminds us that they will buy that Cadillac 20 years later as long as it's still similar. Unfortunately while Porsche knows this with the 911, Cadillac and Jaguar have nothing at the end of the rainbow for those who waited and saved
Great trip down memory lane. I disagree with the Corvette as being one of the worst. It couldn’t be more 80’s... and I loved it as a kid. Thanks for all the great entertainment in 2022, Adam
I can’t begin to describe the rush of memories and nostalgia that flooded my brain upon hearing the Buick and Cadillac jingles. Those jingles were a big part of the background soundtrack of my childhood!
For the (bad/lousy) Corvette commercial, I think the band Queen have a strong case against GM for stealing their melody to Flash Gordon. Thanks for the great content.
Maybe they paid royalties for that cringe-worthy tune.
Please do a video on the 4+3 manual transmission. I've heard a little about it, but I've never heard it explained in any kind of detail. That would be a great video for people like me.
As a former dealer, I had several of these that had the 4+3 and, like many things, the problems were vastly overstated. Just because George, Elmer and Clyde say that they're junk doesn't mean it is true. That same trio (George, Elmer and Clyde) also declared the Quadrajet and Cross-Fire Injection to be junk, too. After they were done condemning the products, they went back to work at the warehouse.
_One of the Best and Realist of All the car channels on UA-cam PERIOD_
The 87-88 Chevy Beretta campaign and launch commercials was one of the best that I can remember. I was a teen then and still remember that commercial and how cool the Beretta looked coming out of the water! The shape was revolutionary - we need some of that out of the box thinking at a reasonable price like back then! The Beretta, Starion/Conquest and the initial Mitsubishi Eclipse were some of the best wow factor cars!
The Cadillac, Cadillac, Cadillac Style commercial was always was a favorite!
I remembered when Buick introduced the all new smaller Regal for 78... I was a young teen and my parents had a 76 Regal coupe in which I loved .. and the 78 Regal ad .. a little science , a little magic with the smoke and all was just amazing to me .. and I still remembered it today !!
The 'special feel in an Oldsmobile' ad jingle of the mid 80s was my personal favourite
I had an internship at DMB&B the Bloomfield Hills Ad agency in 1989 that had the Pontiac and Cadillac accounts and I remember the Cadillac Style campaign, but the real star was The Pontiac We Build Excitement campaign, to me their best campaign ever.
As I recall, the full version of the Citation jingle used in other commercials had an extra verse at the end and sounded better. The Citation was so new and innovative by GM standards. From a features standpoint, Chevrolet had a lot to talk about with this car and the commercial reflects this. The funky sounding music may sound dated today was popular during that time.
This commercial was sort of a "cousin" to the 1977 Chevrolet commercial with the tagline "Now that's more like it". I suspect that at least some of the same advertising people were involved in both campaigns.
Beginning especially in the 1990's, the use of jingles in all forms of advertising began to decrease. Commercials with jingles sound dated today but were the norm when I was growing up.
"The first Chevy of the '80s" but very much the last ad campaign of the '70s.
More room! More manageable! Now, That’s More Like It!
In 1980, I was 27, had just become a father and had bought a Dodge Omni to get 4 doors in a small car package. None of these ad campaigns did anything for me...then (even aspirationally) or now.
I remember all those commercials from back then. I always liked the “We build excitement “ themed Pontiac ones and yes they tended to make me want a GTA trans am even more!
Look forward to the "mystery" changes. I love old car ads and films.
I actually like the "Best of all it's a Cadillac" jingle a lot. For better or worse, the slogan is pure melodramatic nostalgia and sentimentality.
For worse. All promise. No delivery.
'Cadillac Style' was a catchier song and slogan but 'Best of all.. It's a Cadillac' wasn't bad, by any means. It certainly didn't deserve to be on the "worst" list. And it was on it because he didn't know what it meant?? What?? LOL For many people, Cadillac was the best! It was the Standard of the World. The Fleetwood Brougham De' Elegance was a classy dream car all through the 80's and early 90's. They're fondly remembered and nice ones can sell for big $$$, these days.
@@maxzee1739 Exactly. "Best of all it's a Cadillac" was nowhere near as "This is not your father's Oldsmobile".
Excellent video Adam. Good choices. I liked the Cadillac and Pontiac and Buick themes from that time. The buyers connected with them and they sold cars. Marketing was indeed important. A Special Feel in an Oldsmobile sold a lot of Oldsmobiles to a point in the 1980's. Things as you know started going sound around 1987-1988 time frame. Great effort and information Adam. I hope you will do more.
Adam what a fun watch, you're one of the best. The 80's was the best decade ever, my three cars that got me through the 80's was a 55 Chevy pickup, 65 Ford two door wagon and a 65 GT350. Still have the GT350.
The "Best of all it's a Cadillac" seems more a brand than a vehicle advertisement, presumably no matter the quality of the car, it was a better choice than say a Lincoln and would have been better if the car was driven away than sitting there. Great idea Adam.
I just love these retro videos!! And I agree with you on your rating of these commercials! Excellent video!
Hey Adam, great premier!!! Thanks so much, I enjoyed it!!! 👍👍🙂
You continue to amaze me with your subject matter from video to video. Keep up the great work Adam
Buick was the best add. My first car was a 1982 Buick Riviera. I wish I still had that car.
That Corvette commercial reminds me of the Styx song "Mr. Roboto", which was a hit in 1983, so maybe it was on their minds when they wrote the music for the commercial.
And you missed two of GM's most successful ad campaigns of the late '80s/early '90s -- "Not Your Father's Oldsmobile" and "Cheverolet, the Heartbeat of America". Although, I think they were more focused on slogans than jingles. Those were right up there with "Have you driven a Ford lately?" in pop culture at the time.
I’m thinking they were blasting “Flash Gordon” before they got together to write this jingle.
I like that '84 Corvette commercial. The only reason you might think it is "super funky" is because you're viewing it through a 2022 lens. Through a 1984 lens, that looked like a really good ad, I say.
On the other hand, I certainly agree about your "best" ads. Those three are all great commercials I remember fondly!
Awesome upload and I hope to see future uploads similar to this one as well. Thanks for your efforts and keep them coming.....
I couldn't agree more than your Pontiac choice at the end of the list. What a throwback to my teen years - still very catchy
Thank you Adam for a great year. Happy New Year. I enjoyed the Pontiac ad the best.
Hi Adam. I truly enjoy all of your videos. Always learning something interesting. I have to disagree, though, on the Best of all it's a Cadillac commercial because I loved this one at the time. Maybe it was because I really liked the lineup during that era. In my mind the idea was to convey that not only were these luxurious, status symbol cars, but they were also Cadillacs - I guess as opposed to Buicks or Oldsmobiles, or maybe Lincolns - and therefore were special. The Cadillac Style commercials were catchy and otherwise effective, but the lineup was so weak that it didn't matter. And yes, the Corvette commercial gave me nightmares! Looking forward to your next video.
I always favored the “Cadillac Style” series in the 80’s. Then the Punckrocker progression in the 2000’s.
yes in 1980 an add with a 3 wheel car towing a boat would be something you wouldn't forget
I really wondered if my glasses and eyesight were failing 😂😂😂 good grief what were they thinking
Adam, I'm not a specialist in Marketing, but I think Cadillac was focused on lifestyle, that's why the polo game. The qualities of the car are implicit. That's why they don't talk about numbers, this is for lesser divisions, with a popular appeal.
I love the content of this channel. Excellent job
The great thing about all of these commercials is that it reminds us that in the 80's, people were still normal.
I agree. At one time, I wouldn't have called the 1980's the "good old days," but compared to the world we live in today, that's kind of what they seem like.
I would say we were on a comfortable slide downhill. Until the beginning of 2021. I’d have to say this is probably the worst decade since the Great Depression.
I can see Mad Men making these commercials. Highly manipulative to elicit a Pavlovian response. New GMs were never as good as the ads said they were.
I know what you mean... I look at the present and usually cry or gag... I miss yesteryear, too.
Yes they were
How in the world did "Special Feel in an Oldsmobile" not make the list? That was truly the brand at its best before completely losing its way in the later part of the decade.
I love the Allanté moving ahead of the Mercedes SL. 😂
Behind the back seat is a special bag. Thank you for the memories.
"We build excitement" - I have that on my license plate frame on my 84 fiero. Agreed Pontiac really captured that "excitement" in terms of auto design during that period.
The best automotive ad campaign ever started just after the ‘80’s, “like a rock” for chevy trucks.
That's a very successful one.
Thank you Adam, loved it!
Great memories there for sure. I don’t agree with you about the ‘84 Corvette commercial but I do agree with you concerning the late ‘80s Cadillac commercials. “The only way to travel is Cadillac style” was iconic! I also didn’t care for the annoying, screaming, grating vocals of the Pontiac ads of the late ‘80s. I’ve ALWAYS hated them. They’re trying too hard. Pontiac was a classic and iconic brand that, IMO, deserved better than pandering to the god awful pop syntho music of the late ‘80s. I love your work and opinions and thoughtful reflections from these great decades of automobiles gone by. Please keep them coming 😊
Another great video, thanks for your efforts
The cars you drive on the channel are fantastic.
With that capitalization "Lily White" looks like a proper name. "Lily" is either a very old lady or a little girl, it seems nobody born between the mid-1940s and mid-2010s has that name.
Hi Adam, long time watcher but first time commenter (I typically watch your videos on our Roku TV which has my daughter's account, not mine, and it's impossible to comment on the TV :)
The '84 corvette commercial reminds me of Tron more so than Star Wars, and I actually liked it. The Buick and Pontiac commercials in your top 3 I remember quite well from my teenage years. Just look at the styling on all those Buicks in that commercial... they were beautiful cars.
I know this was a best/worst of GM commercials, but if you do one for the other domestics you have to add the early 80's Dodge/Plymouth "Colt 5x5... by Mitsubishi" commercial. I hated it at the time but it has obviously stuck with me.
The best campaigns leaned into the 80’s hard.
Good content. Can’t wait for hear about Rocks and hotdogs in future videos.
Also… I expect a documentary on Mrs Shore and her effort to push Chevys. 😉
That's *MISS* Shore to you, and *that* was the way to sell cars! Even if you weren't a Chevy fan, you probably knew all the words to the song!
(..and long after they dropped the song, they used the slogan! *That's* a successful ad campaign!)
I absolutely love these jingles. Some of them remind me of the PAMS/JAMS radio jingles of the time too.
I love how the Seville is just parked on the grass at the polo club or whatever it is, right in front of everyone. They're probably all thinking, "That guy with that new Seville is a total d-bag!"
LOL But it works because it's telling the customers, if they get an expensive Seville, they can park wherever the hell they want! People will know they're First Class and will treat them as such.
@@maxzee1739 haha, right! Get the Seville and you can park right on the green!
Some thoughts...
The Corvette advertisement has a "Knight Rider" feel to it.
The Citation advertisement: thought of this immediately when I read the topic of this video, given your prior highlight of the Citation.
The Seville advertisement: when you mentioned Cadillac, Adam, I immediately thought of the ads for the Catera with the ending of "Who is Lisa Catera?"
The Buick advertisement: LOVE it, particularly with the tagline of "the great American road belongs to Buick".
The Cadillac advertisement: LOVE it, too, particularly "the only way to travel is Cadillac style".
The Pontiac advertisement: LOVE it, as well, definite catchy tune ... with some "hints" at KITT, it seems.
Adam,love your videos.Citation brings back memories of drivers ed in high school.Flooring it on the DC beltway as the instructor is screaming take it easy and the 3 fellow students in the back were white as sheats scared.Mike the Greek
Hands down, I think the best ad campaign GM ever did was the “Like A Rock” run they did with Chevy trucks and Bob Seger - but I don’t think that started until the 90’s……???
Other ad campaigns that were very memorable to me were the “See the U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet” from the 50’s and the “Baseball, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet” from the 70’s! To be honest, the only campaign I can think of that was memorable to me from the 80’s were the “Mr. Goodwrench” parts and service ads (especially in print form) that featured General Chuck Yeager…….🤔
Be interesting to see what you come up with as your favorites!
That was the 90s and it was great
I really liked “The Heartbeat of America - That’s Today’s Chevrolet” campaign. Also “Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet”. My 1992 S10 Tahoe pickup came with a cassette tape that started with “The Heartbeat of America” song. Loved it!
Like A **** 😐
"Joe Garagiola, Mopar Doctor!"
I always liked the "That's more like it!" campaign for the '77 Impala and Caprice. It was one of the only ads I can name that subtly admitted that the previous year's model wasn't quite what the public wanted.
There's a great ad from 1985 or 86 for the Cutlass Supreme, it's driving along a beach with the tagline "You only catch one like this once in a lifetime". Probably my favorite GM ad from the 80s
That Citation ad has been in my ear for 42 years.
How does the Citation tow with no rear wheels? Anti-gravity?
I was looking for a response that pointed that out before I would. That must be to emphasize the front wheel drive. The Citation was Chevy's first front wheel drive car (ffwd?)
I was ready to have my eyes checked! 😂😂😂
This is great, thank you.
I guessed the 3 best before you got to them because we all loved those ads. Still get the Cadillac song stuck in my head when washing the dishes.
That Pontiac commercial was definately shot in Toronto. Cant mistaken Sam the Record Man and the Gardiner Expressway overpass.
The girl in the commercial at 11:27 looks an awful bit like Allana Miles … pre “Black Velvet” I’m sure … a Canadian commercial for sure
Alanna Myles … sorry
Excellent and thoughtful analysis as always. You remark that Ford and Chrysler did not have many jingles in the 80s, but as a very young boy in the 80s I thought Fords were called "Ford Latelys" because of "Have you driven a Ford, lately?" So something was working.
They did. They had that one and a cool Aerostar jingle, but that was about it.
"Taurus, For Us"!
Quality is job 1
I was going to add the "Like A Rock", but others have commented it was 1990s not 80s. A couple others I liked were the Buick Regal Grand National ads with "Bad To The Bone" by George Thorogood (sp?). Another favorite Buick campaign I think may have been early 80s was the "Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?" jingle and campaign, very catchy.
I had heard a story about Like a Rock. Sieger didn’t want them to use it but it tested off the charts in focus groups and they talked him into it because they said it would sell American trucks and save jobs. Now THAT’S persuasion.
I was in my 20s. We felt like we were advertised at. Such fake excitement. So loud. Not just GM, but it’s a great example. Thanks for another good one Adam.
As a Buick fan I have always been fond of the “Great American Road” ads as well as the “Wouldn’t You Really Rather Have A Buick” ads that were featured from the 60’s up to the 80’s. These were better times both for Buick and the US in general. I didn’t care much for the “That’s Not a Buick” ads from about a decade ago.
I Really would rather have a Buick
I like all of the ads. And at least you could buy a wide range of CARS then as opposed to boring SUVs now.
Man, hearing that Buick commercial brought back a flood of memories, watching Thunder Cats or Bionic 6 or some other cartoon after school in the late 80s :)
Great video but in my opinion the very worst ad's of the eighties were by FAR the "This is not your Fathers Oldsmobile". They really made the wrong call with that coming off the best selling Oldsmobile's of all time and starting the rather quick fall to the whole division going away. Seems to me that what the public really wanted was Dad's Olds. You can't just cast off One hundred years of automobiles and re-invent yourself over night.
Great point.
If you ever do a video on Chrysler ads of the 80’s you must include the infamous 1984 Plymouth Turismo Duster “cocaine factory” ad. Best jingle ever and packed with every 1980’s cliche they could think of.
At least they got a decent actress for this commercial. But the car was pure junk, eh.
Pontiac also made use of ‘The Pontiac Girl’, a stunning brunette discovered in their assembly line staff, in their print ads in the ‘80s. ‘Natalie’ something iirc
At 90 seconds, I don't think the Corvette ad was meant for TV. Also, I avoid driving in a HazMat suit. LOL
Good choices, Adam. Like John H. below, I also remember the Chevrolet "Heartbeat of America" ads from the '80s with fondness, and specifically the ones featuring the Celebrity, and would put this one in the winner list as well as the ones you selected. I couldn't help but notice that in none of these ads, women are still featured only as supporting roles - rarely the driver - and no minority individuals are used as actors.
Adam , vero good as always. In the case of the Vette I was waiting Darth Vader step out of the car swinging his light saber!
I'm an absolute sucker for these old ads, and even tacky jingles are sorta familiar and comforting in today's world, where so many ads use generic uninspired lofi hip hop instrumentals or slowed down pop/rock songs.
I am one of those people who enjoy disco, so I really love the Citation ad. It's dripping in late 70s musical cues and it just speaks to me.
Also, while lacking substance, best of all it's a Cadillac has always stuck with me. The Cadillac style jingle and ad was a big step up, managing to be much more contemporary than that bland country club setting earlier.
It's so nice to see these late 80s Cadillacs, even if it's just in ads. They used to be everywhere and now they're totally gone.
I think the same reasons that people were hit with positive vibes about Chevrolet during their 'see the U.S.A. in your chevrolet' were why 'the Great American Road belongs to Buick' was such a hit as a jingle. It's an American car with history and heritage and even if they weren't always the best built cars, meant something special to the people who bought the brands or stayed loyal to them. Definitely perfect ad campaigns in that regard. Pontiac started off with the calmer, slower 'we...build...excite...ment' ads a few years earlier and Pontiac was indeed doing most of the right things for their customer base at the time. The Cadillac Style campaign was short but I always enjoyed listening to the song. As others have noted, one of the WORST 80s ad campaigns was 'this is not your father's oldsmobile'. Yeah, great way to piss people off who LOVED their father's oldsmobiles and that with the new olds cars they were basically getting 'leftover' designs from other division projects (or at least it FELT like that). I CRINGE at the thought of the one with William Shatner pretending to be Kirk and saying 'steady as she goes' and his real life daughter blasts off down the road in the cutlass supreme with the wraparound rear window. I would love to hear John Manoogian's (or whoever was the lead on the Old's design team) perspective talking about why Oldsmobile was failing heavily at some of it's designs during the same time Pontiac and Buick were consistently hitting it out of the park.
I played a gig and we did play the jingle for the debut of “The First Chevy of the Eighties.” The Chevy Citation.
Pontiac is the brand I miss the most as well. They were heading in the same muscle car direction as Dodge.
The GTO probably would’ve been given a retro redesign and the G8 would’ve also gone more muscular to compete with the Challenger.
Imagine all of the high-powered variants they’d have out today… albeit, they’d likely be looking to some sort of electrification (given the climate of today).
Cadillac is definitely moving into the ultra-luxury realm with the $300k+ Celestiq; leaving a lot of room for the others to become even more distinctive.
I wish it could’ve worked out better for the brands that aren’t around anymore. If only GM hadn’t done so much blatant badge engineering and focused on just making each division even more distinctive (with no questions as to what the car competed with). If that meant paring each division down to 3-4 vehicles, so be it.
This is just a little fun and quick imagining of GM in 2023 (given they never got rid of Oldsmobile and were able to keep some their brands after 2009):
Cadillac: Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Mercedes-Maybach, …
GMC: keep doing what’s been working and that’s making upscale versions of Chevrolet trucks (with a larger gap between Chevrolet’s top model and GMC’s entry level ones; except on the work trucks… which I also feel they could just streamline to one division but I understand the marketing logic behind having both), … along with high-end EV trucks, …
Buick: Lexus, Genesis, Volvo, … with the revival of a gorgeous coupe and sedan… (that would have some potential Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz buyers cross-shopping them)… Overall, having Buick perfectly positioned with Lexus, Genesis, Volvo, …
Oldsmobile or Saturn: full-EV brand with the Aurora (or a similarly sized car) as the main competitor to the Tesla Model S or, for Saturn, reviving the EV1 nomenclature… for example: EV3, EV5, EV7, EV-X (because, crossover 😐), …
Pontiac: NO SUVs… just 3 or 4 muscle cars to be right there with the Dodge Challenger, Charger, and the like
Chevrolet: the everyday car, truck, crossover, van (at least one minivan to compete with Chrysler, Kia, Honda, and Toyota), and SUV - with exceptional build quality and more emotional - yet distinctly American - designs than Honda or Toyota, …
Its Ironic the Seville is included in this video because I actually in the open, saw one for sale near a gas station yesterday with my dad, and I have ever only seen 1 of those! I will say they had some creativity back then, albeit compared with today they did seem to have some zing to em. Well done on the video!
A very interesting stroll down memory lane. The point I walk away with from all of these ads is that GM was essentially selling a banding exercise, not specific merits or values of the particular models. This was a common theme of the 1980s, when companies used advertising to sell products based on how the purchaser would feel from the purchase (ego) or how the purchaser was expected to visually impress other people by being seen with the product (personal image expressed to others). The ads use fast cuts between a jumble of images and high-strung music to encourage car sales, but were really not about the merits of the cars themselves. It was all about puffery/hype, a very 1980s exhibition of style-over substance. I would contrast all of these TV ads with the popular song by Ronnie and the Daytonas from the late 1960s, "Little GTO", which tells the story of a guy who's obviously proud of his Pontiac GTO muscle car, equipped with a 389-cubic-inch V8 and a 4-speed. That song sings the praises of a single car, of course, but it has more substance to it than all six of the 1980s GM corporate ads, which come across as dreadfully hyped music videos. Honestly, the best ad of the six was the 1980 Citation, which, even through the fog of all that puffery, at least gives you a very brief idea of what the new car is about and what you can expect. (Even if the idea of stuffing five people into a compact Citation is pretty ridiculous.)
"..sell the Sizzle, not the Steak!"
Oh man was I in love with that Corvette and that dashboard display that was everything at the time. I was in seventh grade when that car came out. One was on display in our local mall and I spent a lot of time admiring that car.
I remember a St. Louis Chevy dealer did a commercial to the tune of the 1980 Chevy Citation jingle:
"Here comes a Chevy dealer like you've never seen...
A dealer selling a whole new kind of driving machine (Chevy by Milner!)
A whole new kind of dealer with the people and the pride
A dealer with a difference--and the cars you want to drive (Chevy by Milner!)...
Get the best offer on a Chevy, from the best people you can find--
Get the best offer on a Chevy, this could be the car you have in mind--
CHEVY BY MILLLLLL-NER!"
I remember this commercial because the radio station for which I worked at that time had a trade-out agreement with this Chevy dealer to provide vehicles for the station's use. The dealer went out of business a couple of years after that!
Stomach turning to see a picture of Roger Smith…
Pontiac was definitely in its second “good times” in the mid 80’s into the mid 90’s. They had brought together two main buying groups with the same brand image; first was the buyers who still resonated with the greatest decade for Pontiac (60’s) along with those who wanted that BMW look without the price.
They had excellent styling to match the brand image until the late 90’s when (just like happened in the early 70’s) the style of each redesign was a disaster. This was followed by a gutting of the mainstream models and a failure to get brand appropriate SUV’s and trucks.
Pontiac mostly made cars first. They dived into making vans and SUVs the Aztec what a disaster but they never made trucks
Enjoyed!!
The Chevy "Like a Rock" commercial was fantastic! But that was the 90s. But in the late 80s GMC had a catchy jungle: It's Not Just a Truck Anymore! Well done.
Weird as the Corvette commercial was, I was just surprised to see a Corvette commercial at all! I could be wrong, but I’ve never personally seen another commercial for a Corvette since that, for any generation.
Excellent selection! The Seville ad seemed the most preposterous. By1985 the Polo set was driving Benz's, Beemers and Jags. Cadillac's demographic had narrowed to septuagenarians and pimps.
I enjoyed it .. and must agree 100 % that I loved the Pontiac ads. The Grand Am from the mid 80's into the 90's car and ads made me look at one and almost buy one during the 80's and 90's.. however a dealing with a bad salesman made me buy another car. The F series trucks sold between 600,000 and 900,000 for many years (not just 450,000) .... and note the Citation was introduced in April 1979 as a 1980 model ..so they made the 80 Citation for 1. 5 years ...also the 800,000 units was production not sales.. the Citation did hit around 350,000 sales in 1979 and 1980 (79 sales data included some 79 Novas that were still being sold in the first part of 1979). Actually the Oldsmobile Cutlass /Cutlass Supreme outsold the Citation in 1979 and 1980..81,82,83,84,etc
I actually love that 1984 Corvette commercial. Then again I'm a huge C4 Corvette fan. Very advanced car for it's day. Ahead of it's time. Owned a 93 40th anniversary six speed LT1 Z07 suspension car for 13.5 years. Loved that car.
I'm not that old at 35 but as I was coming of age the C4 and C5 where the Corvettes.
The 1984 Corvette commercial is very early 80s and fitting, not that bad
The first Corvette ad wants to be STAR WARS, KNIGHT RIDER and TRON, but GM/Chevy had reason to brag because it was the beginning of a great new era for the model. They played that Citation jingle to death, esp. when you include all the radio ads! The three ads you liked I thought were cliched and silly, though a point to Pontiac for including a pizzeria sign in one scene.
I also liked the "Heartbeat" Chevy commercials and the one for the intro on the '82 Camaro "the Shadow".
Wow! Can't wait. 👍