Truck Commercials

Truck Commercials.

Are Truck Commercials the most exaggerated expression of masculinity on the planet? A 50-thousand horsepower, diesel fueled, disgustingly fully loaded showcase of overcompensation? American companies seem to market their trucks to a very shallow dude. Nothing seems to really change in the tone of the ads. Truck commercials are still completely un-subtle, and unintelligent. The demographic who would buy into the turbo cock explosion of the Dodge Ram ‘Never Back Down’ campaign apparently likes to be bashed over the head with a tire iron, and blazed with a flame thrower to understand how a new truck will fulfill a need in their lives.

Trucks obviously serve as useful for different kinds of work. But apparently, it's not enough to just tell you that the cab is bigger, or that you’ll get more miles to the gallon, saving you tons of dough over the long term. Maybe because there is very little that actually changes from year to year barring the look of the thing. So, a grizzly-voiced manly-man voice-actor needs to spit it in your face as you watch clouds of dust shoot up into the atmosphere of some random location on earth, with electrifying cock-rock shouting in the background to distract you.

As a developer of this form of advertising, are advertisers just getting lazy in going above and beyond conceptually? Are they relying too much on production value? How far can you take this macho vibe before a man’s balls explode just from watching a 30-second Ford F-150 skating across a makeshift construction site with flames in the background, and some terrorist waving a truce flag? Is there room for a more intelligent way to market a vehicle that is useful, without attaching the outrageous crap of what an ideal man should look like, sound like, hang out with, do for a living, as well as drive?