Ad Review/ August 2023

I recently pitched (unsuccessfuly) to Private Eye Magazine’s Ad Nauseam Column

Here are the ads, good and bad (mostly bad) I looked at under the microscope

Yeah, well, you know grey is my favourite colour

In a YouTube ad spot that tickled the collective receptacles of Adland this month, Fiat CEO Olivier Francois cheerily stated ‘We’ve broken the rules and decided to stop the production of Fiat grey cars” shortly before he, and the car he’s sitting in, are dunked in a CGI vat of orange paint.

“Fiat’s mission is not just to bring smart new solutions: it is also to bring some colour and optimism to a world that needs it” preens Olivier, a man with a tan so leathery his plastic surgeon must have apprenticed at Mulberry. How these smart solutions eventuate remains to be seen, not least because according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, grey is the most popular car colour in the UK, chosen by 415,199 auto buyers last year alone — or 25% of all new British cars

And orange? The future’s not so bright — a paltry 19,403 registrations put it, rather morosely, in eighth place with a 1.2% market share.

Fiat may well be ‘Driven by Passion’ but they’re steering towards a brick wall if they ignore what people actually want to buy.