‘Torture Test’ TV Ads Rack Up Truck Sales

Few truck owners have hitched their vehicles to bungee cords and dumped them off tall bridges.

Not many have wrapped parachutes around their trucks, then dropped them from high-flying planes. And scant few have used their trucks to tug 420,000-pound railroad trains.

All of these stunts--most recently the bungee cord drop--have been showcased in TV spots by truck makers. Unlike car advertising, which these days tends to highlight creature comforts and personal safety, truck ads do just about anything to prove that their brands are the gosh-darned toughest.

The latest “torture test” commercial--which began airing two weeks ago--comes courtesy of GMC Trucks. In it, a utility vehicle falls over an 876-foot bridge. The red truck dramatically dangles in the air at the end of a 600-foot bungee cord. All this to prove that the frame is made for towing, “whether you’re on road or . . . off road.”

Seemingly silly ads like this--which are about as far-removed from reality as the tacky Timex torture-test ads of years’ past--are supposed to make people want to buy the truck. Funny thing is, they do.

In fact, marketing experts say consumers eat this stuff up--not because the ads are realistic, but because they give people a cock-eyed sense of confidence.

“Toughness is the supreme attribute of a pickup truck,” said Jim Hillson, senior vice president of Phase One, the Beverly Hills-based advertising research firm. “The ads may seem silly, but that’s the whole point. Viewers will say to themselves, ‘If the truck can take that kind of punishment, it can certainly handle whatever I dish out.’ ”

Advertising psychologists say there is also a macho element at play in the ads that appeals to many truck buyers.

“They’re selling courage,” said Dr. Joyce Brothers, the noted psychologist and radio talk show host. “The ads reassure the person who owns the truck that he is someone who cheats death. These days, with so many men confused about their sexuality, the ads are a reassurance of masculinity.”

And even though “tough truck” advertising has wavered oh-so-slightly in the kinder, gentler 1990s, it has surely not disappeared. In fact, it may be making a comeback.

“These guys will use every gimmick in the world to prove that their truck is the toughest,” said Joe Bohn, truck editor of Automotive News. “It’s only going to get crazier.”

By most accounts, the truck torture-test advertising began in the mid-1960s, when Ford started calling its trucks “Ford Tough,” then tried to prove it. It didn’t take long before everyone else was in the macho truck game.

Dodge started referring to its trucks as “Ram Tough.” Chevrolet, which uses a different theme now, used to be so eager to prove that its brand, alone, was “like a rock” that a commercial it aired five years ago featured a shot of a Ford pickup that tips and falls over.

GMC executives say their truck-on-a-bungee spot, created by the Detroit office of the agency McCann/SAS, was designed to raise eyebrows.

“You can’t get your message across if everyone is yawning,” said George Wood, ad manager of GMC truck division. “The ad reminds consumers that these vehicles are not to be taken lightly.”

The spot, filmed by the Los Angeles production company Fahrenheit Films, was originally supposed to feature a truck blasting off a bridge and dangling on a steel cable. Engineers persuaded the spot’s director, Rod Davis, that the force on a cable would rip through the truck.

Davis opted for a bungee cord. “The trick is to make the ad look like something more than a sideshow,” Davis said.

The production crew dropped the truck off the bridge three times before it got the right shot. One unimpressed marketing chief at a rival truck maker scoffed, “All the ad proves is that they used a strong bungee cord.”

GMC is hardly the first truck to fall from the sky in a TV spot. Ford broadcast an ad 25 years ago featuring a truck--attached to a parachute--that dropped to the desert floor from a cargo plane. The truck was driven away right after it hit the ground.

Over the last year two years, Ford has abandoned that tougher-than-tough truck campaign in favor of one that stresses comfort and safety. “We’ve established our credentials for toughness and don’t have to dwell on that any more,” said John Vanderzee, ad manager for the Ford division. “Now our customers want to know what else they can get.”

Chevy has also toned down its tougher-than-tough demonstration ads. Just a few years ago, it ran a spot that executives affectionately called “Ditch of Doom.” That ad featured a Chevy truck easily rumbling through a mud pit while a Ford truck had a harder time.

“Sometimes these ads stretch your credibility,” said R. M. Whisner, manager of Chevrolet truck advertising. “That’s one reason we’ve moved away from them.”

Torture test ads are also less frequent these days because women are buying trucks in record numbers. For example, women bought more than 52% of Ford Explorers last year.

But the makers of Dodge trucks are still gung-ho on toughness.

Last year, Dodge ran the spot of the truck lugging the 445-foot-long train from a dead stop. “Consumers don’t have to listen to our words,” said Jay Kuhnie, national ad manager for Dodge cars and trucks. “They can watch that ad and see it with their own eyes.”

Briefly . . .

The Santa Monica agency Kresser/Craig Advertising has won the ad business for KCET, Channel 28, formerly handled by Della Femina, McNamee. . . . Horizon Media Inc., a large media buying company, is adding 10 employees for the creation of a Los Angeles media buying service. . . . A new ad industry trade publication, California AdNews, is being published by Newport Beach-based Meridian Media Group. . . . Two Latino PR women who have run cross-cultural public relations firms have merged their agencies to form Pasadena-based Michel & Fierro, Inc. . . . United Colors of Benetton will outfit the Increase the Peace Volunteer Corps., a publicly funded urban volunteer group trying to improve race relations in New York City. . . . The West Coast screening of the best ads from the 1992 Cannes International Film Festival will be at the Directors Guild of America office, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 8 p.m, sponsored by Screenvision Cinema Network and Adweek magazine.