Both Agency, Car Maker Benefit From Soft Sell : It’s No Lie: Isuzu TV Ads Get Attention
He tells the kinds of outlandish lies that would make Pinocchio’s nose grow to gargantuan proportions--earnestly assuring television viewers that Isuzu dealers are selling cars for $9, offering 1% financing and giving free houses to those who act quickly.
By lampooning the traditional hard-sell car commercials, the American Isuzu Motors Inc. commercials created by the Los Angeles office of New York-based Della Femina, Travisano & Partners have jolted and amused normally jaded consumers like no other advertising campaign in recent memory, experts say.
The commercials, in which an Isuzu spokesman makes outrageous claims that are rebutted in captions, mark the first time on network television that an advertiser has lied in a commercial and admitted it, experts say. And in doing so, the spots have attracted the admiration of millions of skeptical television viewers who have come to regard “truth in advertising” as an oxymoron.
“It’s a real breakthrough advertising campaign,” said Ed Fitch, a senior editor at Advertising Age, which in October praised the so-called “Liars” commercial in the magazine’s quarterly honor roll of outstanding advertising. “Most (car) dealer ads show people hopping up and down in the showroom.” By contrast, he said, Isuzu “has taken boring information and delivered it in an interesting way.”
The commercials have also focused new attention on Della Femina, Travisano & Partners of California Inc., which was recently lauded for an unusual three-dimensional, pop-up ad for Transamerica in the Sept. 8 issue of Time magazine.
The 19-year-old agency, which creates advertising for 25 companies ranging from Ralston Purina to the Carl Karcher Enterprises fast-food business, has about 125 employees working out of its Wilshire Boulevard office.
But it is the zany Isuzu car campaign, which began in July as a single spot for local car dealers, that has drawn the most attention. The original spot has evolved into a $14-million national effort with six commercials featuring Los Angeles actor David Leisure.
In the first Isuzu spot for the I-Mark sports car, pitchman Leisure proclaims: “It gets 94 miles per gallon city, 112 highway!”
On the screen below him flashes the message “He’s lying.”
“And now with generous factory incentives,” he says in another commercial for the Isuzu pickup truck, “buy one and you’ll get one free.”
“We’re generous, not stupid,” says a printed disclaimer.
The creators of the “Liars” concept say the tongue-in-cheek approach has helped elevate Isuzu’s message above the me-too advertising efforts of automotive competitors.
However, the chairman of Della Femina laments the distrustful consumer climate that has given rise to Isuzu’s new-found fame.
“It’s a very sad world where you become famous for telling the truth,” muses agency Chairman Jerry Della Femina. “I think what this campaign shows is that consumers don’t trust most advertising.”
The “Liars” commercials weren’t originally conceived as a daring advertising venture. The original assignment was to put together a 25-second dealer spot to which regional Isuzu dealers’ groups would add five-second identifications.
With only about $10,000 to spend, the spot seemed destined to become the latest addition to the string of uninspired car dealer commercials that clutter the screen during year-end sales promotions.
Client Wanted Details
“About the only thing you can do is take existing film, add music and read some copy that covers all of the points” about the product, said Matthew Bogen, a 25-year-old Della Femina copywriter. What’s more, the assignment was especially tough because Isuzu wanted to include so many statistical details: mileage and performance data, dealer incentives, price, big inventories.
Bogen consulted Rick Carpenter, the group creative director, who helped solve the impasse. Carpenter, 28, suggested using a spokesman who exaggerated and rely on captions to present the long list of boring details requested by Isuzu.
Carpenter, Bogen and Jeanne Marie Obeji also successfully lobbied for a production budget six times the original $10,000 figure. With a bigger budget they first went after “Saturday Night Live” star Jon Lovitz.
Art director Obeji now says Della Femina’s unsuccessful bid to sign Lovitz as the lying spokesman may have been a blessing in disguise. She said that Lovitz, who plays a lying character on Saturday Night Live, “may have attracted more attention to himself as a celebrity than what we were trying to say in the ad.”
Della Femina auditioned some 80 hopefuls before settling on Leisure, who says the secret to being a good liar is “having a big smile and good writers.”
Critical Success
David Stewart, an associate professor of marketing at USC and author of the book “Effective Television Advertising,” notes that the use of captioned disclaimers and lies requires viewers to process a lot of information.
“Conventional advertising wisdom suggests that a commercial like that would tend to confuse people,” he said.
While Isuzu’s $14-million national television advertising campaign has been a critical success, it is unsettled whether it is helping American Isuzu Motors, the Whittier subsidiary of Isuzu Motors Ltd. of Tokyo, to sell more cars.
Isuzu has increased its U.S. car and truck sales nearly 12% this year and in September recorded its second-best sales month ever, selling 11,623, compared to 10,882 in September, 1985. In October, the company sold 10,688 cars and trucks, compared to 8,613 in October a year ago.
But Isuzu spokesman Glenn Howell notes that Isuzu has been heavily promoting low-cost financing and other incentives along with the current “Liars” advertising campaign.
“Sales have generally been up, but we’ve also had incentives like everybody else,” said Howell. However, he added, “word-of-mouth reaction about the commercials has been incredible; 99% of the people like them and think that they are really funny.”
