You knew it was coming — Lexus kicks offer their annual December to Remember event in the US with their Red Bow commercials. Have no fear, this year’s crop is especially excellent:

Very well done.

Given the economic climate and overall auto market meltdown, it’s no surprise that a slightly different tact was taken. Getting a car for Christmas is probably a once-in-a-lifetime event for most people, and these commercials capture that feeling with great success (though I think they should have substituted an IS-F for that ES).

This new Lexus ES commercial continues the “behind every detail, there’s a detail” marketing campaign:

It might not be as successful as the first riff on this theme, but the nod to the original LS champagne glass commercial more than makes up for it.

What begins as a headscratcher ends up being a very effective commercial for some exclusive Lexus technology:

My first time watching the commercial, I immediately though of one particularly weird commercial from a while back, but in actuality it was a very convincing application of the driver monitoring system.

[Via: Steadywinds]

With all the economic doom & gloom, let’s indulge in some stress of an entirely different sort:

Joe’s a little too risky, if you ask me. His little move has backfire written all over it.

Keeping with the commercial I posted yesterday, this 1999 Lexus GS 400 commercial featuring Mr. Bill is in the self-same vein:

I guess 1999 was the comedic years of Lexus advertising! (I’m almost surprised the commercial didn’t end like this Mr. Bill SNL skit):

In a replay of last year, a Lexus RX 450h 400h advertisement has been banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority:

The press ad, for the Lexus RX 400h, made the claim: “perfect for today’s climate. (And tomorrow’s) … Driving the world’s first luxury hybrid SUV makes environmental, and economic, sense …”

Four complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Authority that the claims were misleading because “they implied that the car caused little or no harm to the environment and gave a misleading impression of the car’s CO2 emissions in comparison with other vehicles”.

Lexus said that the use of the word “climate” in the ad was meant to operate at “two levels”.

One was that in the current economic market the Lexus was offered with attractive financial packages, the other that hybrid cars were more environmentally friendly.

But the ASA said the ad implied that the vehicle’s emission rate was low in relation to all vehicles and that readers were likely to understand that “the car caused little or no harm to the environment”.

(The above advertisement is a modified version made by Lexus after the receiving complaints. The original ad didn’t have the word “economic” in the headline.)

To be honest, I see anything wrong with the ad at all, and not only that, isn’t it strange that Lexus isn’t allowed to promote their product’s strength over competitors?

[Source: The Guardian]