Watching Simpsons

While many people love Homer, he can still cause a few rankles. That seems, however, to be the minority view, because Springfield, as well as the Simpsons clan, are proven brands. Whether they’re hawking cheeseburgers or driving around in French cars, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie have been known to be well sought after. The thinking, it seems, is that any show that’s lasted as long as The Simpsons must be loved by a sizable chunk of the population. And, in many respects, the denizens of Springfield have become easy metaphors, partly because for many, those characters are now embedded in the public’s imagination.

Still, some question the use of Homer, like the Jackson Citizen Patriot:

How’s this for a sales pitch? Compare the car you’re selling to an overweight, balding buffoon of a cartoon character.
In a word: D’oh!

Ford Motor Co. officials left heads shaking recently when comparing their Taurus to, of all people, the animated Homer Simpson. These weren’t some assistant vice presidents, either, but some of the top brass.

Their point was to hype the redesigned Taurus sedan that’s in the works. But their praise sounded like it could have come from a Henny Youngman (”Take my wife — please!”) routine.

“The new Taurus that you’re going to see in the next year or so is the one we should have made originally,” CEO Alan Mulally told industry officials, according to the Associated Press.

Ford’s head of global product development, meanwhile, reportedly showed slides of Homer next to the current Taurus. He also offered images of Superman and Mr. Incredible next to drawings of the redesigned car.

Of course, using Homer is not entirely new in the auto industry. The French company Renault and their new Kangoo model have planned to feature the Family driving around Europe. Whether those ads work or not remains to be seen. Still, it’s interesting that Renault is using the family as a way to put their product in a positive light. On the other hand, Ford is trying to do the opposite. Pairing a Ford with Homer is meant as a self deprecating bit of criticism, and, in reality it’s not an ad campaign either. So, in a sense, the creator, Matt Groening, was likely not consulted.

This may or may not pique the interest of Simpsons fans. After all, if the proposed use is funny, nobody will care. It all depends, really, on how the character is used

Taurus, Kangoo, Renault, Homer, Simpsons, Homer Simpons, Ford