Few people have the attention span anymore to read all of the copy in BMW's old ads. Ad agencies could hire Hemingway himself, it wouldn't make any difference. People look at the picture, the headline, and move on.

So-called brand advertising (at least, print brand advertising) serves as an admission on the part of marketers that, if they can't fit the whole AIDA model into a single ad anymore, they can at least try to push Awareness as much as possible.

Doesn't mean that brand advertising is particularly effective.

or could it be that everything is so oversaturated with ads that spending two minutes voluntarily reading fluffy ad copy just doesn't seem like a great use of time, even if it's well written?

attention span is its own problem, but connecting the two like this seems... odd.

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EDIT, had more thoughts on this

i mean, i like the old VW Beetle ads. they're charming and clever and i enjoy reading them. but that's because the element of "trying to get me to buy something" isn't relevant anymore, i'm experiencing the (long-dead) ad willingly. but if the ad is a normal ad i see in a magazine... no way i'm giving it my undivided attention for two minutes just so it can manipulate me into liking X

It's not so much that they don't write copy, it's that they try to avoid telling you that it's copy

Few brand owners or ad agencies also want to produce an ad that doesn't play globally. It's harder for things to get lost in (literal) translation when there are fewer words to translate. It's cheaper too!

He certainly understands the concept of brand and product advertising.

> a deliberate and calculated emotional effect.

When there is no concrete information the emotional effect for me is to close the video. All this "aspirational" puts me off and I'll think "only vapid and empty people like this".

High quality luxus items have a quality of their own which has nothing to do with aspirational aspects.

for example, clothing construction at the higher levels is not exactly easy to judge. I don't know anything about stitching patterns or common fail points, but if Ralph Lauren advertise in a way that suggests that the people who wear their clothes are also the people who wear Rolex and drive Mercedes, people will make that connection.

Even if you think immune to this stuff, you aren't. If you think you could be classified into any particular social group, you are probably riddled with these kind of beliefs. I think it takes a prolonged and deliberate effort to avoid the tricks of advertising

My tailored suits already opened my eyes before, but in common day items it is ever more apparent to me now. Seams that don't fit or are crooked, stitches missing etc.

With respect to BMW or Audi etc. Most of the 'quality' comes from constant re-iteration of reviewers calling something high-quality, just because it is the way they know it.

Luxury items MAY be high quality but they MUST be aspirational.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

Do you really believe these ad makers are so infallible that they can't completely misread their target audience? Or are you making the mistake of believing that the target audience is by definition the ones who like the ad?

I take that as evidence that the ads work and the ad makers haven't "misread the target audience".

I'm not Elon Musk, but I don't need to be and neither does anyone else. There's absolutely no reason to believe that any person (not specifically me) ,who is not in BMW, could in fact have a good insight to something they're doing wrong. People commenting here on HN could be working in marketing or marketing adjacent industries and notice problems that are very hard to see from within the organization itself.

In fact I'd argue that nearly every organization has some sort of blindspot and bias that informs their work due to the company's history and structure. And it's not necessarily true that those biases materialize in ways that are beneficial.

BMW is no exception.

My only point is to consider here: is BMW default wrong or is BMW default correct?

My default is to understand why a system behaves how it does before using my own value system to say why it’s wrong.

Part of this progression of thought is there’s usually very good reasons as to why things are how they are. It’s really hard to outsmart lots of time, money, and people.

It’s my belief that until we understand the thought, theory, and progression of events that led the system’s current state, we’ll probably make similar path-dependent mistakes when we propose solutions so I assume the system is default correct until it’s fully understood.

My point about Elon (who’s considered a success to some :)) has had industry marketing success but it took him over a decade and billions to do it.

I would definitely not argue that BMW is default wrong, but I also would not argue that they are default correct.

I think our difference of opinion here is rooted in our different understandings of the power of money, time, and people.

All three of those are very important and are definitely a multiplier on the ability of an organization to both advance and implement some solution.

However, my opinion is that those things aren't the only factor that lead to a successful solution. Your root ideas that you're using those three things for must be based on a core idea that's correct. I'm saying that, that core idea could be completely wrong or misguided. Especially in this case where BMW seems to be targeting a new demographic, with a new product. Right now they're in a learning phase in my opinion. And yes they can use some of their institutional knowledge from similar marketing pushes in the past to make sure the message for this EV is polished. But that past knowledge only goes so far. Drawing analogies and parallels between the two (historical marketing efforts and this modern one) fall flat in key ways. They are not and cannot ever line up 1:1 where the knowledge transfer just gives them a working cookie cutter recipe that works 100% of the time.

So going back to approaching the same thing from opposite sides, I think I'm really getting at this same thing you said "It’s my belief that until we understand the thought, theory, and progression of events that led the system’s current state". However, I'd take a different fork and say that while understanding all of those things is important, it doesn't mean that the theory and the process of implementation are necessarily fault free. I'd say that there's actually 3 options here: BMW is default wrong, BMW is default correct, or BMW is somewhere in between default wrong and default correct.

I think it's the latter where no organization is ever on the extreme ends. So really I think our disagreement is base around how various factors unique to them play into which way they "lean" on this continuum leading to the likelihood that they're correct.

Marketing gaffes and the need to readjust after getting feedback while launching a new campaign are common in my experience. (Yes, I know, my experience haha). But the best way I can judge a situation without having first hand details... which many of us here don't and we're just all talking for fun. Is to use my experiences, value system, etc. to voice an opinion that is definitely up for debate.

But I definitely don't think this specific situation is as black or white as "you're not their target"