Car makers are going back to cheeky ad campaigns

Manufacturers have been poking fun at each other with billboards for decades – some with more success than others The process of choosing a car, ploughing your money into it and then having to explain so many times why you’ve done it inevitably makes automotive culture a bit tribal – and, critically, adversarial. It’s puerile to laugh or sneer at someone who simply made a different choice and yet, just occasionally, we do it. We can’t help it, because it taps into something ancient in our subconscious that no effort at enlightenment can permanently suppress (that’s what scientists say, I promise). And so does really good car advertising. Billboard advertising does it best. The art of the billboard has become weighed down in recent years by the potential of digital technology and unconventional creativity, and a certain sense of one-upmanship between the agencies that make them. There are digital billboards now fed by ANPR cameras that display personalised messages when you drive by. There have been billboard adverts for the Ford Mustang that actually produce imitation tyre smoke. The internet tells me there was one in Vienna for high-end kitchen knife brand Tyrolit, the surface of which actually itself slowly oxidised to reveal the outline of the knife over the weeks and months that it stood there (which, I must admit, was a clever idea). But I like those simple, slightly cheeky billboard ads much more – especially when they’re poking fun or digging out a rival. When done well, they’re the product of an attractively sharp wit with some confidence and self-assurance, and they’re very often a bit knowing and self-deprecating. They feel like the product of the mind of someone whose team you would like to be on. So does it matter how true they are? Just as with most advertising, there’s a greater tradition of these in the US than in the UK – probably because we have stricter regulation. But not strong enough, evidently, to prevent Ineos poking fun at rival JLR the other week. It fixed a pair of billboards to a trailer and towed them around between Land Rover’s West Midlands manufacturing and distribution sites. The billboards themselves depicted a suspiciously clean Defender nose-to-nose with a filthy Grenadier, the tow car was the self-same Grenadier and the message read ‘Let’s take this outside’. It made me chuckle. I’m not a Grenadier owner and not a particular fan of the car. Furthermore, I know the underlying implication of the campaign to be, shall we say, questionably founded. I’ve witnessed first hand what a Defender can do around forest tracks and in a muddy quarry to firmly put a Grenadier in the shade with its rough-stuff capability. It’s not the stuff you’d make Ineos ads from. But it doesn’t matter. Because we all know that one of these cars is bought by people who will genuinely take it off road and one generally isn’t. JLR should take pride in that, because it means the Defender is reaching beyond its grasp and is much the bigger commercial triumph. But that does open it up to the odd sledge. It’s the price of success. Renault has done something similar recently, with a billboard ad for the Renault 5 outside its Brentford dealership inviting people to ‘make their neighbours jealous’. The neighbour of the dealership in question happens to be a Mini franchise, and there also just happens to be a special 5 with a Union flag painted on its roof on the front of the forecourt. In both cases, I looked, I smiled – mission accomplished. ANPR cameras and special effects didn’t need to be involved. Here’s to modern automotive industry corporate culture not being so po-faced that it can’t have a bit more good old-fashioned fun now and then.

May 26, 2025 - 09:20

Car makers are going back to cheeky ad campaigns

Manufacturers have been poking fun at each other with billboards for decades – some with more success than others

The process of choosing a car, ploughing your money into it and then having to explain so many times why you’ve done it inevitably makes automotive culture a bit tribal – and, critically, adversarial.

It’s puerile to laugh or sneer at someone who simply made a different choice and yet, just occasionally, we do it. We can’t help it, because it taps into something ancient in our subconscious that no effort at enlightenment can permanently suppress (that’s what scientists say, I promise).

And so does really good car advertising. Billboard advertising does it best. The art of the billboard has become weighed down in recent years by the potential of digital technology and unconventional creativity, and a certain sense of one-upmanship between the agencies that make them.

There are digital billboards now fed by ANPR cameras that display personalised messages when you drive by. There have been billboard adverts for the Ford Mustang that actually produce imitation tyre smoke.

The internet tells me there was one in Vienna for high-end kitchen knife brand Tyrolit, the surface of which actually itself slowly oxidised to reveal the outline of the knife over the weeks and months that it stood there (which, I must admit, was a clever idea).

But I like those simple, slightly cheeky billboard ads much more – especially when they’re poking fun or digging out a rival. When done well, they’re the product of an attractively sharp wit with some confidence and self-assurance, and they’re very often a bit knowing and self-deprecating.

They feel like the product of the mind of someone whose team you would like to be on. So does it matter how true they are? Just as with most advertising, there’s a greater tradition of these in the US than in the UK – probably because we have stricter regulation.

But not strong enough, evidently, to prevent Ineos poking fun at rival JLR the other week. It fixed a pair of billboards to a trailer and towed them around between Land Rover’s West Midlands manufacturing and distribution sites.

The billboards themselves depicted a suspiciously clean Defender nose-to-nose with a filthy Grenadier, the tow car was the self-same Grenadier and the message read

‘Let’s take this outside’. It made me chuckle. I’m not a Grenadier owner and not a particular fan of the car. Furthermore, I know the underlying implication of the campaign to be, shall we say, questionably founded.

I’ve witnessed first hand what a Defender can do around forest tracks and in a muddy quarry to firmly put a Grenadier in the shade with its rough-stuff capability. It’s not the stuff you’d make Ineos ads from.

But it doesn’t matter. Because we all know that one of these cars is bought by people who will genuinely take it off road and one generally isn’t. JLR should take pride in that, because it means the Defender is reaching beyond its grasp and is much the bigger commercial triumph.

But that does open it up to the odd sledge. It’s the price of success. Renault has done something similar recently, with a billboard ad for the Renault 5 outside its Brentford dealership inviting people to ‘make their neighbours jealous’.

The neighbour of the dealership in question happens to be a Mini franchise, and there also just happens to be a special 5 with a Union flag painted on its roof on the front of the forecourt.

In both cases, I looked, I smiled – mission accomplished. ANPR cameras and special effects didn’t need to be involved.

Here’s to modern automotive industry corporate culture not being so po-faced that it can’t have a bit more good old-fashioned fun now and then.