After watching "The Persuaders," I found that this commercial provides an invitation to a "ready-made identity" to its audience and target consumers. This identity of not being a macho-American-big-vehicle-driver is implied. The audience that the Smart Car company is trying to target I believe would be conservationists hippies who don't favor the American concept that "Bigger is Better" when purchasing their cars. Is that a stereotype? Yes. Will this psychographic identified, fabricated audience appeal work to sell this car? Yes as well.
That is because this identity reaches out to so many people who fit into this category. It gives them a nice little cocoon of warmth and happiness to make them think that there is a whole community of people just like them who want to save the environment and who drive Smart Cars.
Maybe it's just me, but I think its cute that the Smart Car isn't capable of overcoming the hurdles that the big, four-wheel-drive trucks are able to do in Chevy or GMC ads. This adds an element of humor (a technique for advertising) to the commercial.
I've found that this is a common effect of many advertisements, and I've seen it work before, but it wasn't until after "The Persuaders" that it had occurred to me that it wasn't just about the product and images in the ad, but the "weasel-ish" words that could also capture the minds of many, and pull them into a crowd.
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