Pontiac through the decades

You may have heard that GM is phasing out the Pontiac brand by the end of 2010. As my favorite car brand since I was a teenager, it’s sad to see it go. It’s hard to imagine the yearly Twin Cities Auto Show without checking out the new Pontiac models. I’m a former Pontiac driver, and “admirer” of the 60’s GTO’s and 70’s Trans Ams. I remember when I was 16, all I wanted was a new black Grand Am GTP.

Pontiac has been around since 1927. If a car company abandoning a brand with that much history isn’t enough of a sign that the American auto industry needs help, then I don’t know what is.

Here’s a stroll down memory lane featuring memorable Pontiac advertising campaigns from every decade dating back to the 50s. I’m sure at least one of these campaigns was memorable to you, I know all of them from the 80’s to today are for me. Who could forget the “driving excitement” jingles from the 80’s?

2000’s:

1990’s:

1980’s:

1970’s:

1960’s:

1950’s:

Our first reaction to something, usually a superficial one based solely on appearance, changes almost immediately upon use. If it doesn’t work well, then it really doesn’t matter how impressive your graphic design or industrial design was.

So is it a waste of time for a designer to do work for a product that isn’t any good? First, I suppose you have to determine what makes a product bad. There are numerous things, but usually it’s a case of quality being compromised so that they can be made cheaper. Businesses figure that marketing can fix that problem by making the products seem a lot better than they actually are through image manipulation & trendy graphic design. Well, I personally don’t think that’s good business.

I think there has to be more collaboration between the design and the product; meaning that the product should feature the same equality in its use as it does in its appearance through industrial design and graphic design. All it really comes down to is businesses should be more honest about what they’re selling.

It’s a frustrating problem. Sometimes the product will be so awful you can’t even take a good photograph of it for your ads. I often find myself feeling very sorry for professional product photographers. Some products are so bad that you have to fool people by manipulating the photos so much that it ends up looking like almost something entirely different. The product you’re now portraying in your ads after your extensive photoshopping ends up not being the one you’re selling at all. Is that deceptive? Is it wrong?

Well, companies do it all the time. Most photography we see of food isn’t actually real food, for example. Not only does that really upset the consumer when they find out that they’re being fooled like that, it really makes what the graphic designers and photographers did completely pointless. I’m sure you can probably relate when I say that my first experience with that feeling of advertising deception was as a young child. I had just received my hamburger, expecting the big juicy burger up on the menu, but instead I received a burger that was half the size and half as appetizing as what I saw on the menu.

If the product you’re marketing turns out to not be quite like the great product you advertised, then the graphics are awful too and not only did the company fail, but so did the graphic artist. The graphic artist lied, and dissapointed the customer. Yeah, the company may have sold one product thanks to the good graphics. Yes, you got the customer in the door, but you’re probably not going to see repeat business. Company’s will rarely admit this failure is the product’s fault, though – they’ll blame it on the marketing.

I just wish things could be sold and marketed as honestly as possible. If only it were that simple.