Ford Fiesta - Stupid Dogbot, Clever Fiesta

9 February 2008 by Silky

I was talking to a friend not so long ago about his future plans. He was debating whether to move away from London to a new, better paid job because leaving the bright lights of the big city would mean leaving his youth behind.

“You’re past 30; I think youth has left you behind” I reassuringly told him (after all, what are friends for?).

And I’ve realised that I’m not a young man any more either. It takes me 2 days to get over playing an hour’s football, I can’t bear listening to even a second of Radio 1 and I’ve completely forgotten the excitement of trying to sneak into a pub even though you’re under-age.

So that’s why I probably don’t get the latest set of Ford Fiesta adverts. Stupid Dogbot, Clever Fiesta simply isn’t aimed at me, it’s aimed at the youth (just like the C’Mons Corsa adverts were).

Whilst I sit at home with my pipe and slippers doing a crossword, the youth is sat outside Tesco with tinny music playing from their mobile phone doing a jay.

So, no, I don’t get Dogbot but that’s OK because I’m not supposed to.

But I get a feeling from these adverts that just as I don’t get their adverts, Ford don’t get the youth either.

Let’s look at the features on which Ford are trying to sell their Fiesta to the youth:

#1. Light sensitive headlights:

#2. Rain sensitive wipers:

#3. Power-fold mirrors:

#4. Quick-clear windscreen:

Ford clearly think that the youth is actually made up primarily of 50 year old ex-teachers called Norman and Betty because they’re the ones who will care how long it takes for the windscreen to clear, or whether the mirrors fold in etc.

(Note: I confess this might be because Ford are trying to appease the parents of the youth (who may well be 50 year old ex-teachers called Norman and Betty) with sensible features on the car. Even if this is the case, the adverts still miss their muddled-objective by some distance).

No, here’s a list of car features that I think the youth care about:

#1. It will get me laid.

Fairly straight forward really.

And if you’re going to target the youth niche with your Dogbot adverts then maybe that’s what you should have in mind when creating your advert.

To be fair to Ford they do have a couple of ads with features that the youth might actually give a flying Dogbot shit about:

#1. MP3 connectivity:

#2. Bluetooth connectivity that let’s you park up outside Tesco and play music from your mobile phone through the car’s (not so tinny) speakers:

So come on Ford, get down with the kids and try to remember what it was like being young before you became a high flying car company marketing exec.

Thanks to Dave Newman for submitting this bad ad.

11Responses:

bill carr

February 9th, 2008 7:36 pm

The ‘dogbot’ ad seems to show that the Fiesta turns the headlights off when the moon is bright. Since moonlight alone is not enough to drive with, this seems to be a strange ’safety’ feature to promote.
mooch

February 10th, 2008 11:54 pm

Yep, another advert that reasserts that Fiesta owners don’t have too much up top. I never understood the dogbot as it was but comparing a car with a crap invention just makes you think “you’re comparing your shite car, to another shite invention!?”.

That said there’s little else to compare it to that it can beat…
Joanna Butler

February 11th, 2008 5:02 pm

Stupid Twatbot
Smuts

February 11th, 2008 6:18 pm

Mooch, that’s exactly why I hate this advert. It’s not even a real invention - it’s a CGI, arbitrarily shite robot. “Here’s our product, and here’s something we’ve made up that isn’t as good.”
Joanna Butler

February 11th, 2008 6:20 pm

Stupid shitebot
H

February 12th, 2008 6:11 pm

OK
This ad is mainly aimed at women and to my not so great surprise, the number of women who talk about it that i know and actually really like it is quite amazing. If it actually makes them want the car is another thing but they do like to sit thru the ads.

Answer is it’s not really aimed at men. So a fool who assume that only guys buy cars is either very old, very stupid or alone.
Silky

February 12th, 2008 9:26 pm

You’ve made yourself sound even more pompous than me there, H.

How do you know that it’s mainly aimed at women, matie. Do you have insider knowledge? Do tell…
DN678

February 15th, 2008 1:46 pm

I submitted this ad because it makes me shake my head at the cleverness of the people that composed it. As mooch and smuts have already stated and Joanna Butler gets straight the point, the ad compares shite with shite.

What next “Ford says buy our cars and we’ll throw in brand new features that the Dogbot does not have, like tyres and a steering wheel”?
Joanna Butler

February 15th, 2008 5:45 pm

car seats optional!!
Sugarmouse

February 17th, 2008 8:34 pm

I’d rather have a dogbot than a fucking fiesta
Lou

May 3rd, 2008 10:15 am

I think this is not meant to be taken so literally and is aimed to be humorous. This I think it is and with so much other shite and seriousness on telly its nice to see humor for a change as it seems to be something we see less and less of these days. Personally I like the fiesta too. Too much to complain about these days, get a grip.