It's always a little embarrassing when a car's ad overshadows the car it's selling. I saw this the other day and almost immediately forgot the car it was trying to sell. The people in the ad, though, were memorable.
Hyundai has launched the redesigned Santa Fe crossover to do battle with yawn-inducing rivals like the Ford Edge and Toyota Venza. And that's fine, because people who buy cars like these want easy-to-find LATCH connectors and wipe-down seats and extra space for venti skinny half-caf whatevers.
That's not what Hyundai thinks in this rather ridiculous act showing a rather irresponsible dad. Or perhaps the coolest dad that lets his kids pig out on ice cream and go to Coachella and mountain biking, followed by the oft-used phrase, "Don't tell mom." You know if he were really a cool dad, he wouldn't be driving a Santa Fe.
It can't be this hard to sell two-row crossovers to people who would've appeared on that show Wife Swap. What was wrong with telling people about the size of the cupholders or how easy it is to put on a DVD in the back to silence kids?
Hyundai knows it has a deeply uncool car that's going to be the must-have accessory outside of Target. Now they're giving it to a dad so crazy I wouldn't let my imaginary kids near him. If you're the sort of high-adventure parent, let's face it, you're buying something with locking diffs. And it's not like you need a big car because you suddenly have a child's seat to put in. No dice, ad men.