Tunnel Vision In Detroit

ars are boring—car advertising is worse.

Is it my imagination, or did someone decree that all cars in commercials and print ads must be painted metallic silver?

Okay, Mercedes-Benz kind of owns silver, but what are the other manufacturers thinking? First of all, silver is a difficult color to photograph. You can’t see reflections in silver the way you can in, say, black or British racing green. In black and white, silver cars take on the look of a clay mock-up.

But the lemming effect doesn’t end with print.