09 Dec 2009

2000-2009: The best car adverts of the noughties

We've become so saturated with advertising, marketing and branding that it's often hard to take a step back and appreciate what a creative, unique, amusing and occasionally beautiful little art form advertising can be.

Take a well-loved brand, an exciting or sexy model, a clever gadget, or an aspirational lifestyle portrayed in a well-conceived and well-executed ad and the results can be spectacular.

The Noughties (we know, we know) was the decade that car advertising finally became unisex, metrosexual and democratised.

Gone are the nuclear families, the patronising 'independent woman' pitches, the conservative pomposity of family-car ads and the jingoistic 'built in Britain' car ads - as portrayed in our best car ads of the 80s and best car ads of the 90s articles.

Car commercials between 2000–2009 are about buying into a brand, buying into a lifestyle and being moved by a car on an emotional level.

Witness the horrifying Audi Black Widow RS4 advert - an advert that portrays its subject as a monstrous creature that literally preys on other cars.

Or what about Volkswagen's Night Driving ad, a car ad that fuses Under Milk Wood, Richard Burton and Cliff Martinez in possibly the most beautiful advert of all time? It barely features a VW car.

Then there's another effort from VW for the Golf GTI that has Gene Kelly singin' in the rain and twitching with the futuristic dance moves of David Elsewhere. Glorious, affirming and rather lovely.

Honda's advertising barely features its models. The likes of Choir, Grr, Cog and Impossible Dream are all about pushing the brand; its abilities, history and technology. You may not even notice that they're car adverts.

Car adverts in the noughties almost left the car behind. They became 60- and 90-second mini materpieces, bursting with wit and creativity and all about that emotional connection - a connection made explicit by the Seat range commercial featuring Mark Heap describing the cars via the medium of onomatopoeia and facial expressions.

In a morass of irritating, predictable and intrusive marketing at every turn - on every channel, every platform, every bit of real estate - the car advert became a little oasis of brilliance, ready to surprise, entertain and amuse.

They became events in themselves, worth watching whether you wanted to buy a car not. How many adverts can you say that about? Even if you hate cars, you've got to love these ads.

I tried, I really did. I wanted to do a top ten car adverts for the noughties article. But you try narrowing this lot down to ten.

The one with the elephant, the one with the singing dog, the one with an orchestra playing tunes on a car, the one with Cantona, the one with the dancing robot car, the one with the cake car. There's too many to squeeze into a top ten.

So here's 35 of the best car ads of the noughties. I think they all deserve to be in there. If you vote for your favourites then maybe we can narrow it down to the best ten of the decade. There'll be a series of articles between now and the end of the year to help you decide.

Personally my favourite is Night Driving. Or do I mean Black Widow? Or Impossible Dream? Or...

Make sure to click through to view the ads, vote on the poll for your favourite and check back to read our expert opinions on the best ads. You can scroll through the lot in the Youtube vid at the bottom.

focusensemble