Ford Focus – Beautifully Arranged – Ode To The New Ford
7 February 2008 by SilkyOh dear, Ford.
Their advertising for the latest incarnation of the Focus has been, shall we say, a little on the unoriginal side.
Do you remember the “Own the Road” advert? The one with the bloke driving around streets that were made up of board games and Hot Wheels track as if a child had built it? You know it, the one that came out a few short months after the Peugeot 407 Toys advert.
Yeah, OK it wasn’t a direct copy, more a twist on the same theme, but it wasn’t quite as good as the Peugeot one, was it?
Well now they’re at it again. This time desperate to recapture some of the magic of the Honda cogs advert. So they’ve come up with the Beautifully Arranged advert:
Yes, just like the Domino Rally in the Honda ad was made from actual Accord parts, an Ode to the New Ford is played on instruments, wait for it, that are made from actual parts off the new Ford Focus.
How. Did. You. Think. Of. That?
Yep, every part of every instrument. Because it’s a little known fact that the seat belt on Ford Focus are actually woven from guitar strings. Very strong but, golly, don’t get it caught around your neck in a crash or you’ll end up like Saddam Hussein’s half brother, I tell you.
Anyways, this means that they’ve created a whole horrific advert, built around a horrific pun that is built around a… Ford Focus. *Yawn*.
Each time I see it, it makes me wonder, just how many Radio 3 listeners actually drive a Ford Focus? Put it another way, how many pretentious turd munching wankers (that is, people who will like the musical element of this advert) actually drive a Ford Focus?
My finger-in-the-air, armchair expert guess is none.
But just as you think “You’ve wasted a lot of money on that stupid advert with instruments made from car parts, let’s just get over it and move on” things take a bizarre twist in another advert in the series.
Alesha Dixon, of Strictly Come Dancing/Joke MC in Mis-Teeq has been signed up to sing to a Ford Focus whilst accompanied by people playing the car part instruments.
Truly, truly baffling:
Words fail me.
So what better excuse to post the Honda Cogs advert than as an antidote to Fords lack of creativity?
Enjoy:
Update
Here’s an article in a proper paper by a proper journalist about Ford and Honda. You see, I’m no the only one who thought of “cogs” when they saw Beautifully Arranged…
Update 2
And here’s a link to the YouTube clip that gave Honda the *inspiration* for the cog advert. Thanks to Spooning Monkey and Adwank for supplying the link.
Update 3
Here’s a clever car part advert from Renault for their Megane Sport. Using competitive components in their “Sport is Everything” campaign.
Just How Bad is this Ad?
(22 votes, average: 3.05 out of 5)
35Responses:
Pete
Said on the 10 February 2008
I’d like to know what justification someone who spends their time writing about adverts has to call musicians “pretentious turd munching wankers”.
Silky
Said on the 10 February 2008
Ooh, it’s a very self righteous justification, if ever there were one, Pete.
Plus, when I do my turd munching, my tongue is very firmly in my cheek – not an ounce of pretention on me, luvvy.
mooch
Said on the 10 February 2008
The Honda ad. I wouldn’t buy a Honda, too garish but that advert. Sheer genius.
You should post that advert with the pigeon landing on the bonnet of a car too. Good for a giggle…
Riccy
Said on the 11 February 2008
Hardly one of the worst ads on Tv? I actually thing its pretty good, has a certain quality about it.
Also don’t agree that its a rip off of Honda cog, just because it’s using car parts. You could argue that any advert using people talking to camera is a rip off of Blackcurrant tango.
Silky
Said on the 11 February 2008
Whoa, whoa, whoa, Riccy! “Rip off” were your words. I went for the much more understated “recapture”.
Anyway have you seen that advert for smoke detectors with Julie Walters? What a total rip off of the Blackcurrant Tango advert….
SilkyShithead
Said on the 12 February 2008
What a load of fack’n twaddle this article is. The writer must be a complete fucknut gimp.
Silky
Said on the 12 February 2008
No, no, I’m not a complete fucknut gimp, dear boy, but I am working on it.
Funny you should comment, and this is a hell of a coincidence, but my name is also Silky. My surname’s not Shithead. It’s Shitbiscuit.
Just for the record, do you listen to Radio 3 by any chance, SilkyShithead?
Gina
Said on the 13 February 2008
Not only is it a scam of the Honda adverts – remember the ‘This is what a Honda feels like’ one? – but the music is also a scam of the Jonathan Creek theme tune. What a con!
Ben
Said on the 14 February 2008
Err as long as your slinging mud lets not forget that both Honda cog and the choir were nicked off Youtube films.
spooning monkey
Said on the 14 February 2008
To create instruments out of a car that can make a sound like this is a massive achievement (and if you go to the ford website and see the making of films it seems that the only thing they’ve added are strings). I wonder if this would be getting so much stick if it was for something other than ford. Personally I don’t see the connection with this and honda, and to get Ford to do an ad that can even be compared is an achievement. Apparently they’re using the instruments in music videos and are planning to do live performances – which makes it a far more interesting and modern ad concept than doing a 2 minute film that was stolen from youtube.
Silky
Said on the 14 February 2008
Hey Ben & Spooning Monkey, thanks for your comments.
If either of you have links to the clips that Honda got their ideas from feel free to post them up here. TWA is mucho democratico like that…
I know everyone has to get their ideas from somewhere and what actually is an original idea now anyway. But in terms of TV adverts had people seen something like the “cog” before? I’m not sure they had.
On a similar topic (ideas from YouTube) I read the other day that Fallon originally pitched the Cadbury’s gorilla advert in the form of a YouTube clip (possibly of a baby playing the drums).
Does that make their Gorilla advert any less original?
But if Galaxy had a badger playing the xylophone, wouldn’t you see a connection? And if you thought making instruments out of car parts was hard, it would be one hell of an achievement to teach a badger to play the xylophone….
adwank
Said on the 15 February 2008
This whole debate is bollocks.
All the best ads were inspired by something outside advertising, all the OK ones were inspired by the best ads.
Gorilla was taken from a crap ad which had a gorilla playing the drums. You could argue that by putting it to Phil Collins elevates it. Sony Balls was inspired by Letterman throwing bouncy balls down a hill street in San Fransisco – but the Jose Gonzalez track elevates it. I could go on, but at the end of the day the general public don’t give a fuck. They’d never seen it so it’s worth doing.
It’s only advertising after all.
Sure the Ford ad takes the car apart like cog (and for that reason alone it will never be as good as cog), but it makes something new out of those parts. And if it wasn’t just done for the sake of a TV ad and the instrument are something that exists and can perform then I’d say that makes it unique.
Here are the cog and gorilla inspiration. Doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have been made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82eWptFxSs
http://agencyspy.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/juan-cabral-and-his-inspiration-for-the-cadbury-gorilla/
spooning monkey
Said on the 15 February 2008
I see where you’re coming from.
Oddly enough I think this is subjective. Honda used car parts to create a domino effect, they didn’t change the car parts they just showed how they work perfectly independently as a demonstration of the engineering quality of a Honda. Ford have taken car parts, changed them into instruments that look neither like car or instrument and played music on them as a metaphor for how the car looks. The only similarity is the car part bit and it’s purely opinion as to whether it’s too much of a similarity.
The recent Honda ad makes a car out of jigsaw puzzles, kind of like Skoda made a car out of cake. I’d say there were more similarities between those two ads than there are between cog and ford. By the way here are the inspirations for the cog and gorilla ad. I agree that because no-one had ever seen these films in ads it makes it perfectly acceptable to copy them (although the gorilla one is an ad, but an obscure one).
Anyway I’m bored of this now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U82eWptFxSs
http://agencyspy.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/juan-cabral-and-his-inspiration-for-the-cadbury-gorilla/
Silky
Said on the 15 February 2008
Thanks for the links, Spooning Monkey and AdWank.
I’m pretty sure that either “It’s only advertising after all” or “I’m bored of this now” would make excellent tag lines for TV’s Worst Adverts.
El Guapo
Said on the 21 February 2008
I find it very hatd to believe that the music was performed entirely on those ‘Instruments’… a lot of intruments shown on the advert require precise structural qualities that these things don’t seem to have – Could ‘Performed on Instruments made from car parts’ relate to the visual aspect only………..?????? A thought……
riczero
Said on the 21 February 2008
i can assure you that all the music was performed on the instruments made form the car. The designer Bill Milbrandt is an expert in making instruments out of anything. You can see the making of at the ford webiste. Click through to the microsite and go to ‘media’
http://www.ford.co.uk/ns7/focmca/-/-/-/-/-/-
TheIncredibleMass
Said on the 28 February 2008
Even if the music didn’t come from the instruments, even if it was recorded in a studio somewhere by real instruments, it’s still a clever concept. You could even attritute the original idea to groups like Stomp and the Blue Man Group. It doesn’t matter though. The effect -regardless of origin – has the same effect: people remember the ad, product, brand etc. That’s all the advertising group set out to do. The proof is even in this discussion – the ad has caused discussion, argument and thought provocation. It can be both original genius, or it could be a development (or copy) of another ad. To be honest, all ideas have sources. Even in music, all music could be argued to be taken from each other, after all, isn’t it a development of twelve seperate tones?
It’s impressive to see someone try make instruments out of car parts, just like stomp use brushes and paint cans to make rhythms and the blue man group use pvc piping. The music is simple and minimalist but all the same an interesting concept.
I’m a musician, student and don’t care about cars. I saw the ad and was impressed by it, not overly (in fact, the Cadbury Gorilla ad was more impressive!), but enough to remind me what it’s about everytime I see a ford.
A turd munching wanker
Said on the 4 March 2008
Hmm, by definition, the fact that you and others are talking about the advert, and using the product name to refer to it means that the ad has been a success, and therefore not a “worst advert”. Also, I’m sure that Ford’s marketing boffins quite deliberately made some sort of connection to the Honda ads, Honda are always top of customer satisfaction surveys! As to the fact that it “Dost offend thine ear” (sorry Mr Shakespeare), well we’re all entitled to our own opinions. I have to ask, what music do you listen to?
Love and kisses
A turd munching wanker
Silky
Said on the 4 March 2008
Hey Turd Munching Wanker, thanks for the comment.
There are obviously many ways that adverts can be judged as to whether they’re a *success*. But this is “TV’s Worst Adverts” not “TV Adverts With The Worst Return On Investment”.
It’s not whether they do well for the advertiser but whether I (as I’m the one typing this rubbish) think the advert isn’t very good. Yeah, It’s all very subjective just like any discussion about a topic without a de facto measurement standard. Or some shit like that.
I judge these ads in the same way I judge music, I suppose. And this advert oozes pretension; from the set design, to the use of an orchestra and the word “ode” right down to the hair of the guitar player.
And, for me, the music has no real musical worth. But, because it’s an orchestra, because of the musical style and because it’s played on car parts it assumes it has a value which it simply does not. It wants us to be impressed by something that is not impressive (the music, that is, as even I agree that making car parts in to usable musical instruments is *impressive*).
Because it’s only the new Ford focus, after all.
I say in the next advert, get a band, dress them like people who actually will buy the car and play the bloody theme tune from Terry and June.
Not this pretentious turd munching wanker shit.
As for my taste in music, TWM: I like a good bit of stripped down Italian speed core, anything by Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, oh a good dollop of this.
scrownger
Said on the 5 March 2008
Worst advert of all time
Pete
Said on the 13 March 2008
Silky, not wanting to denigrate your life’s work in the same way as you seem so willing to do of the work of others, but really, who cares?
Silky
Said on the 14 March 2008
Hoisted by one’s own petard, Pete. Ouch.
Anyway, for the answer, let me refer you to the About TWA section.
ChimpanX
Said on the 22 March 2008
WARNING – pointless, timewasting moan follows:
Personally, I think the advert is massively annoying. Its too long, the music is very dull and the musicians in the advert have these awful pretentious looks on their faces the whole time.
I also think the concept is slightly silly. A car is a mass of metal and plastic parts, so its not too much of a stretch to imagine you could cobble a few of them together to make an instrument or two. Add to this the fact that the ‘brass’ instruments couldn’t have been achieved without some level of tweaking (i.e. cheating) and that the ‘string’ instruments couldn’t have been created without adding real strings and its all a bit pointless. Plus I’m skeptical about the mouthpieces and bridges too…
Its long been known that you can make a double bass equivalent using a tea chest, a pole and some string. And I seem to remember hitting some pots and pans with a spoon in my parents kitchen when I was about 2 years old. Genius.
r dalton
Said on the 18 July 2008
well we all know what ford stands for :found on road dead, what shit cars they make, how many fiestas escorts granadas mondeos are there left out there? rustbucket shitheaps just like their shit adverts aimed at the lobotomised morons who buy them
r dalton
Said on the 22 July 2008
i would prefer to hear the sound a ford focus makes as it enters the crusher
Captain Flymo
Said on the 30 July 2008
Good lord this ad is dire. I’m pretty sure the music wasn’t actually from those ‘instruments’, but for some reason the bulk of my (largely irrational) hatred for this putrid pool of mouldy clunge dripping is the pretentious looking gimp on the ‘guitar’. He just looks like a cunt. I would liken seeing this ad to having dirty pieces of broken glass pushed through my eyeballs.
SimonC
Said on the 29 August 2008
I agree with ChimpanX; the advert fails not because it’s derivative (which it is), but because the music is godawful and it’s filmed in a really prissy manner that caricatures the musicians and makes the whole thing look fake. Derivative or not, the idea of breaking down a car into instruments is pretty fun, but they’ve sucked the life out of it by filming it in the style of a Galaxy chocolate ad.
A jam session style would’ve fit much better with the concept (hopefully nothing as teeth-grindingly shit as that Budweiser bottle-top band), and would’ve had the extra bonus that the “beautifully arranged” pun would be made nonsensical, and could then have been binned.
And no, I don’t know why I’m commenting on a 6 month old article either.
Melody
Said on the 9 September 2008
“Hoisted by one’s own petard” …. ouch! I hate misquotes.
wraphesneep
Said on the 25 February 2009
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Ford Focus Beautifully Arranged Ode To The New Ford TV | Wood TV Stand
Said on the 31 May 2009
[...] Ford Focus Beautifully Arranged Ode To The New Ford TV Posted by root 1 hour 57 minutes ago (http://tvs-worst-adverts.co.uk) Hey turd munching wanker thanks for the comment well we all know what ford stands for found on road dead what shit cars they make i would liken seeing this ad to having dirty pieces of broken glass pushed through my eyeballs tv worst adverts is proudly po Discuss | Bury | News | Ford Focus Beautifully Arranged Ode To The New Ford TV [...]
sheila tapp
Said on the 13 June 2009
What a disappointment! I clicked on this site – pretentiously turd-munching all the while – to try to find out a bit about the ACTUAL RECORDING. Did they create the instruments for real? What did they actually sound like – track used was re-recorded on “real” instruments, surely? But what do I find? Ill-informed and ill-natured caricaturing of those of us who have wasted our lives studying music with a little intellectual content. Sorry, must dash off to get a hand-woven and embroidered linen napkin with which to dab my lips. So stained from all the turds!!!!
cass
Said on the 6 October 2009
i honestly see no fucking link between the cog advert and the ford one i think you just have a grudge on ford and tbh i think the cog is way fukin boring and too long the idea’s alright but meh nothing special if u wanna go into chain reaction ideas u could say they copied the guinness domino’s adverts but wateva i think the ford advert was creative
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