No, Even Lexus Can't Top the Big-Wheel Memory
Every holiday season Lexus busts out with a campaign featuring some pearl-coloured vehicle with a bow on top. Far from perfect -- whose pursuit Lexus claims to champion -- it's mediocre and irritating. Like weathered nativity scenes.
Last night we thought we saw something different. The comfortingly low-fi "Big Wheel" bears the consistency of old home videos or a classic holiday movie. In it, a kid with a new plastic trike faces us and cries, "Stop! What are you doing? You can't top the big-wheel memory!"
We ruminate on our own '80s-era big wheels as he reprises us on its merits: the freedom! The wind in your hair!
Then there's an awkward cut. The kid is a man, and now he's facing a Lexus -- with a bow. And we're like, "Fuck, this could have been so much better."
Comments
Totally agree - great spot (as are the other two in the campaign), but the payoff seems flat. Poor acting, and an uninspiring shot of a car in a driveway. It would be great if the payoff was for an iPhone or something that was actually cool. But even if it's "just" for a Lexus, at least show someone inside the car caressing the leather seats, or something that has a hint of "wow."
Lexus commercials epitomize everything that's wrong with a consumerist culture; rich, overpampered (and always white) snotbags giving each other ludicrously-overpriced vehicles is one of the last things I want to ever have to experience, vicariously or otherwise.
Now they're raping the collective childhood of their demographic -- which, presumably, is just fine with that demographic. It's just too bad the rest of us have to see it as well.
My sister used to work at an arts and crafts store and rich snotbags actually had big bows made for gifting cars. I thought these Lexus ads were wishful thinking until I heard this. In times like these, this ad is just gross.