Comments on: Chryslers are for Kids

By: CoCreatr

CoCreatr — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 11:01:56 +0000

It is all about perception. Ever wondered why the Japanese refused to buy these cars when offered there? Besides rational reasons (affordability, lack of street space), I heard these: These cars are no good, when they have an accident they burst into flames. The tires are so bad they even squeal on sand. As seen in Hollywood movies of that era.

And that Chrysler cabriolet ad subliminally suggests the car can fly. How else did it get there – it did not leave tire tracks in the sand.

By: b

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 16:25:05 +0000

Ha, I wonder if low-rise jeans will be considered “mom jeans” a decade from now, while all the teenagers wear pleated pants that stop at their belly button.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 22:27:05 +0000

I love that door handles, seatbelts and sun visors are considered such exciting new features that they are included in the advert.

By: jfruh

jfruh — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:09:23 +0000

If you think that “Chrysler is for grandparents,” it may well be because it was being promoted as being for kids back when your gradparents were kids. In other words, it becomes a brand associated with a particular demographic cohort. The brand loyalty can persist over the years, which is great for the manufacturer — until that cohort becomes itself undesirable by association with the next generation of consumers, at which point you have to try to retool. (Recall the largely unsuccessful “not your father’s Oldsmobile” campaign, Oldsmobile being another brand I at least associate with old people.)

One of the great things about having access to decades of recorded visual material is that you can see that things you associate with old people aren’t necessarily tied to the elderly per se; they’re tied to people who were born at a time that made them old when you were young, but they were young once, too, and liked many of the same things. Take a look at old movies some time — you’ll find many hip, dashing, stylish young men doing that thing that I think of as a quintessential old person move: hiking their pants way up over their waist. Turns out it was in style back then (and it looks much better on a skinny young man like Jimmy Stewart in It’s A Wonderful Life than it did on my seventysomething grandfather).

By: Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist

Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:41:04 +0000

I don’t think of old people. I think of greasers, rude boys, rockabilly/psychobilly folks, bohemian artists, and hipsters, who would ride something as sweet as that. Hell, I want one for myself.