Sid Vicious, Jerry Seinfeld, and New Yorker Cartoons All Part of Acura’s Biggest Media Campaign Ever

Recently, you may have been doing something on your laptop, been startled by the sound of Sid Vicious’ voice snarling a ragged rendition of “My Way,” and looked up at your television, only to see the all-new 2015 Acura TLX being designed and tested at the company’s U.S. production and engineering base in Raymond, Ohio.

That’s what happens in the latest ad for Acura’s all-new mid-size sedan, which we imagine has given a lot of grief to fans of Sid Vicious, who probably still view the late Sex Pistols bassist as an enduring icon of anti-authoritarianism (Vicious may have murdered his girlfriend, been a heroin addict, and never actually learned how to play bass guitar, but he was not a corporate shill, man). Apparently the company had originally considered using the more famous Frank Sinatra version, but found it was “way more” expensive.

The commercial ends with the tagline, “We made this one for us… But you can have one” (gee, thanks!), followed by the promise, “It’s that kind of thrill.”

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Related info: 2015 Acura TLX 2.4 8-DCT Overview

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It’s all part of the largest media campaign in Acura history, which is built around promoting the TLX with irreverence, self-deprecation and humor; three things Acura expects will appeal to the young demographic that they covet.

In another commercial, hip-hop artist Ludacris’ “Pimpin’ All Over the World” plays at an exclusive party being attended by a TLX V6 model with advance package, a girl covered in gold paint, and a guy wearing a cat mask who is checking his smart phone (three things that all young people are really into).

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Related info: 2015 Acura TLX 3.5 V6 with Advance Package Overview

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Jerry Seinfeld also wrote some new TLX ads, which feature a fictional car salesman named Dan Granite spouting random and bizarre life advice while delivering a standard sales pitch for the car. Seinfeld said he’s parodying the concept that a car is “going to completely remake your life.”

The ads will run before and after episodes of Seinfeld’s internet series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee,” which he says now exists purely because of the Acura sponsorship. “I don’t think I’d be doing the show at this point if it weren’t for Acura,” Seinfeld elaborated.

The company even paid to weirdly insert the TLX into single panel New Yorker cartoons, the best of which cleverly references the inaccurate rumors that the TLX would be self-driving, with a robot saying to a car salesman, “I love it, but I thought it was going to drive itself.” The worst one is probably this Far Side-wannabe that tries to pull off that strip’s ability to anthropomorphize animals for ironic effect:

“These are intelligent, witty people and it’s just a fun language to speak to them in,” said senior marketing manager Ed Beadle when discussing Acura’s attempt to appeal to a younger demographic through humor. “You can’t take yourself too seriously.”

Acura is also trying to reach you damn kids with your damn smart phones by allowing customers to build their own version of the premium sedan through Twitter, where a streamlined “configurator” allows users to choose their preferred engine, color and drivetrain. After they finish configurating and click on the “Tweet Your TLX” icon, users can then select “Explore More Options” to visit the full configurator on Acura’s website.

“In terms of developing the creative, we need to capture their attention fast and it has to be made for any device,” said Beadle, who also claimed that, “There’s a great quote that the average attention span of a person today is about 9 seconds – or less than that of a goldfish.” So go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back for slogging through all of the 645 words that make up this article. Especially if you’re one of those young punks who spends so much time tweeting about self-deprecating New Yorker cartoons that you barely have the attention span necessary to focus on a car commercial.