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YouTube/Acura
The comedian has written eight new Acura commercials with the help of Boston agency Mullen and director Barry Sonnenfeld. They're set to air during season four of Seinfeld's web series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," which kicked off June 19.
Seinfeld is no stranger to writing scripts for car commercials. He penned these intentionally corny, retro Acura MDX and RLX ads last year for the show's sole sponsor. He told the New York Times he wanted the ads to capture the essence of a 1960's car commercial, while also making fun of some of the more over-the-top spots.
The latest spots aren't quite as absurd as the last. There are no massive bowls of egg salad wiping out an entire family or game-show style presentations of a car's automatic windows. Instead, Seinfeld created his ideal car salesman, who is refreshingly blunt and spews out facts a mile a minute.
Seinfeld spoke with Adweek about the campaign and the ads' new spokesperson:
"He's a car salesman life coach. He's the guy who is the antidote to the usual car commercial, which is all about what this is going to do for your lifestyle, how this car is going to change your social standing, and I thought it worked for Acura and for my personal perspective. To me, what you want when you buy a car is a great car, and it's not about what the neighbors think, or how you'll look at yourself because you have it..."
The face of the new ads dishes out tons of great life advice including, "You give out a fake number, make sure it's a working number. At least somebody answers," "You want a stunning supermodel? Car's not gonna do it. Try being yourself," and "Don't knock on hotel room doors with keys and repeatedly yell, housekeeping." All valid advice. He can even recite important facts in Spanish, as seen in the ad below.
The point of the ads, according to Seinfeld, is to show that a car can't change your life and it won't give you everything you want, even if it's an Acura. You should buy a car because you like, not because you want to impress other people.
The ads all point to that fact that the car comes in seven colors because as Seinfeld says, "We're saying, you don't have to worry about the car; the car is great. Just figure out what color you like."
You can find all of Seinfeld's Acura spots here.