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Like Big Bows on Cars? Check Out The Lexus December to Remember Ads

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December is here, and though it’s kinda sorta already been since the beginning of October, it’s now officially the holiday season.

These are the things that you can expect during December:

  • Crappy weather
  • Bing Crosby all over the radio
  • A sudden spike in people making jokes about Red Ryder BB Guns
  • More crappy weather
  • Did we mention crappy weather?
  • A brief moment of joy
  • At least an afternoon’s worth of family conflict
  • Just stop with the being cold already
  • Stupid car commercials with giant bows

Today, we’re focusing on that last one. You already know what we’re talking about: snow-kissed houses in the background on a frosty morning as a man/woman/couple/small family wanders into their driveway and finds a beautiful and shiny luxury ride with a big red bow on the top.

Lexus December to Remember

Oh. Boy.

The bow-on-car genre of car commercial has been done, done to death, resurrected by an earthbound Venus probe carrying an unknown radioactive lifeform, shot in the head, thrown on a pyre with the reanimated corpses of other bad commercials, and inexplicably lives on because it’s actually more like an O’Bannon/Russo zombie and not a Romero zombie.

As such, the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event has not one, not two, but three commercials featuring vehicles—in this case, the RX, ES, and IS—with bows on them.


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“The bow is a Lexus holiday icon that people know without even seeing a Lexus logo,” Jason Stinsmuehlen, group creative director at Team One (who put together the spots for Lexus), told Adweek. “We’d never walk away from something that powerful.”

Note: there is nothing—nothing—powerful about a bow on a car. You know what image a bow on a car evokes? A bow on a car. And that’s about it.

Lexus December to Remember

Pictured here

“It is, admittedly, one of those ad images that some have lampooned,” added Stinsmuehlen. “But like the [Coca-Cola] polar bears and [Budweiser] Clydesdales, we hope it’s an icon that’s as welcome as any marketing during the holidays can be.”

About as welcome as a horde of corpses wandering through the streets of Louisville and calling for your brains.

Apart from the presence of car-bows, the ads are actually somewhat clever.

You do you, Lexus. Do you. But think about dropping the bows. They’re like the Tarman of the car commercial world.


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Lexus December to Remember Ads

Bow-on-Car Thing 1: “Teleporter”

Bow-on-Car Thing 2: “Magic Box”

Bow-on-Car Thing 3: “Christmas Train”