This commercial was apparently made to celebrate the cinema and specifically dedicated to and created for the Oscars. That’s cool, and also a great idea. They show fictionalized scenes from movies involving cars, and from a children’s perspective (that’s how I’m reading it, anyway, as there is a young boy sitting in the back seat), all to play up the connection of voice-command-activated cars to cinema. I’m surprised there wasn’t a Batmobile reference in there, or a Cars reference, but it was probably prohibitively expensive. (I’m pretty sure it was on the ad creatives’ list for the clearance department, though! But then again, I guess with the kid’s mask, they’re combining Speed Racer with Batman right there.) But this selling point of having voice-recognition capabilities, and perhaps even a Siri-like entity to interact with, is wonderfully realized through the eyes and imagination of a child, shown with highly mannerized visuals that appear childlike to adults, in this Hyundai spot shown last night during the Oscars.
I was aware of every movie reference they made (I believe), and I was really excited to see this commercial. This may sound silly to people who find ads annoying, but seeing this brought me back to my childhood momentarily, and back to the experience of seeing each of these movies referenced, and back to that sense of wonderment and excitement about the idea of having talking cars and artificial intelligence that was so novel when I was a little kid in the 70s. It’s hard, I think, for someone without my life experience of being a Star Wars fan, loving Sci Fi stuff, etc., back when there were no computers in homes yet, to really, truly relate to the feelings this commercial brought back to me of back when this idea of having a car you could talk to was just a fantasy. Back then, the future predictions were about cars that would drive themselves, and flying cars, etc., but the idea of spoken commands was still just the stuff of movie fantasy. But here it is, and we still have no flying cars! I’m amazed an disappointed at the same time!
But the amazement is mostly with this ad! I used to work with voice-recognition software when I was an IT guy in the 1990s. I thought it would be available long before now. Siri seems new to some people, but I was surprised it took so long, frankly, as we were working with this kind of stuff long ago. There were programs of artificial intelligence you could have conversations with through typing in the early 1980s, even. But in the 1970s, this stuff was still just the stuff of nerdy dreams! And when I was that kid’s age (the one in this ad), I wasn’t even thinking about computer controls on cars, because I was more thinking about the other, more visual stuff we see in this ad (morphing cars that fly, go underwater, etc.). But it still takes me back there, because of the great imaginative visuals, so whoever conceived of this spot did a very good job! (Even if owning this car would be nothing like this ad's first three-quarters: you know, the cool part.)
Here’s the cool cinema-inspired car conversation commercial:
