The art of Automotive copywriting

Without even a shadow of a doubt, automotive advertisements have become some of the most referenced, most culturally resonant pieces of marketing content.

The sheer number of automotive advertisements that have featured soundbites, copy, or visuals that have entered the public consciousness is almost too many to count. Think of French footballer Thierry Henry muttering Renault’s now iconic, ‘va va voom’, or Volkswagen’s classic Beetle tagline, ‘think small’, identified by Alpha CRC as one of the top five automotive slogans of all time.

These are supreme examples of creative copywriting in automotive advertising, underlining the importance on understanding the audience and cultural contexts in which marketing campaigns will be released. This kind of creative automotive copywriting identifies new ways to present the brand – as cool, sexy or safe, by playing on the cultural stereotypes that have developed in target markets.

Renault’s ‘va va voom’ campaign, for example, plays on the belief, held by many native English speakers, that French is an inherently alluring language, and, in doing so, transfers some of the allure onto the brand and the car model itself.

Meanwhile, Audi played on the German reputation for engineering excellence by leaving its tagline, ‘advancement through technology’ in German. By doing this, the brand was able to preserve its mysterious image and differentiate itself from competitors.

Automotive campaigns rarely rely solely on promoting features of the vehicles, and instead sell the audience a whole new, aspirational way of life. Excellent automotive copywriters will be able to take the cultural values a target market holds in high regard, and find a way of connecting them with the brand and any specific models that may be used in the campaign.

In the automotive industry however, many brands maintain an international customer base. In this case, it can be difficult to figure out how to pitch campaigns for each specific audience. This is where multilingual teams of native copywriters can help.

Alpha CRC employs teams of in-house copywriters to deliver automotive copywriting, for marketing campaigns, brochures and user manuals, with multilingual subject matter experts collaborating to ensure internationally consistent, yet locally relevant material.