BMW Delivers Decent Ad For BMW i3, But Not 1 Of My 4 Favorites (VIDEOS)

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If you’ve been following my electric vehicle (EV) coverage for long, you know that I’m not a fan of most EV commercials… despite loving EVs. There are just four EV ads or ad campaigns that I’ve loved — more or less. I’ll share those below after commenting on BMW’s new BMW i3 video ad. First here’s the new BMW i3 video:

http://youtu.be/EDf6KIpwiMg

So, that was a pro driver ripping up a race track. It was decent. Better than average. It actually portrayed the car as fun, fast, exciting, hot, etc. But it wasn’t anything special. And the BMW i3 is a special car, so I think it deserved more. The BMW i3 is BMW’s first electric car built electric from the ground up. It’s also the highest quality non-Tesla on the mass market. Highlighting the wicked and wonderful torque of the i3 would have been nice. Doing something a little different would have been nice. But, hey, it was quite good overall, and it did steer away from the common “this is a feelgood, logical car since it’s green and fuel efficient.” And we certainly need to broaden EV marketing in order to get the EV revolution rolling faster.

With that commentary out of the way, if you’re wondering which four EV ads or ad campaigns I loved (more or less), here they are:

http://youtu.be/bYlToxn9Mhs

Why do I love this ad? Because it highlights a performance benefit of electric vehicles that gasmobiles will never have, and it does so excellently. It highlights the tremendous torque of electric cars, noting that the Chevy Spark EV (a rather cheap car) has more torque than a Ferrari 458 Italia. It also visualizes the fact that the Spark EV is electric very wonderfully, in a way you won’t forget. Excellent. Now if GM would just sell the car in more markets….

http://youtu.be/4DrsJks9ysw

If you’re going to sell an electric car based on the environmental benefits of EVs, really sell it. Really do it. Renault has created the best such ad yet with this one, imho. It’s clever, funny, and really gets people thinking about the pollution automobiles emit — something we are far too used to at this point. This is a classic, and it should be shared every opportunity we have.

http://youtu.be/w4pxzMY6Bvo

That’s just one of a series of excellent “Fiat 500e is sexy” commercials and ads. There’s no denying it — sex sells. Funny also sells. And funny is also sexy. This ad campaign was quite funny and sexy, and it’s the only such campaign I’ve seen for an EV. Kudos to whoever put that together. It’s too bad the head of Fiat is so anti-EV and the car is only being produced in the smallest quantities for the fewest markets. It’s sort of odd that one of the hottest and most acclaimed electric cars, with one of the hottest ad campaigns, has been produced by a company whose head is so opposed to EVs. I guess it’s sort of one of the enigmas of the EV industry.

Gallons of light is an amazing video. I don’t think it was actually commissioned by Tesla — read the creator’s story of the ad for more on that. But it doesn’t matter. This was an ad for the Tesla Model S, and it is one of the best EV ads I’ve ever seen. Someone in charge of marketing electric vehicles should really get in touch with Jordan and do more to spread strong, positive EV messages that make you think about the technology in a new way. Jordan nailed it here, and I’m sure he could do much more to advance the EV revolution.

So, those are my four favorites. Any more that you love and I missed? Any disagreement here?

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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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