Jerry Seinfeld Created These Hilariously Dated Acura Commercials

Image via Image via YouTube screenshot/Acura

Comedian and car enthusiast Jerry Seinfeld collaborated with Acura to write the scripts for eight new hilarious commercials. Seinfeld figured the best way to sell cars was to use all the worst advertising techniques from the Mad Men era, like pointing out the most mundane features and trying to make the car seem very futuristic.

To me, what was funny was a car from 2014 gets transported back to an ad agency in 1965 which is somewhat incompetent,” Seinfeld told the New York Times. “The feeling that I’m trying to give the consumer is, ‘We don’t get you — we are so out of touch that we’re bragging that our cars are metal.’”

Thats’s not an exaggeration. One of the ads actually points out the car’s “all-metal exterior.” Other commercials tout the car’s “real nylon carpeting,” “exciting interior colors” and “all-plastic cup holders.”

The taglines are just as cheeky. One ends, “Acura: yesterday’s tradition of craftsmanship, today’s affordable luxury, tomorrow I’m busy most of the afternoon.”

Acura is happy with the commercials, which don’t mention a single feature customers would actually care about. “The purpose is to build awareness that these cars exist, and once we can get more people to be aware of the car, we can increase consideration,” Michael Accavitti, a senior vice president who oversees Acura marketing, said to the New York Times.

Despite the ads’ silliness, they do still show off the cars. Accavitti said, “While we’re doing it in a tongue-in-cheek way, there are a lot of beauty shots of the interiors and exteriors.”

The commercials will bookend new episodes of Seinfeld’s popular show, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.”  Each 10- to 15-minute episode shows Seinfeld and a guest comedian hanging out in a vintage car and getting coffee. The third series will premiere on Sony’s Crackle streaming service Jan. 2, with the car commercials at the beginning and end.

And Seinfeld, who doesn’t appear in the commercials himself, accounted for this type of advertising. The ads work best in pairs, so the commercial at the beginning of each episode will still be fresh in viewers’ minds when they see the paired ad at the end.

I feel like these just make my show better,” Seinfeld said to the New York Times. “Nobody would want to skip through these — they’re just as funny as the show.”

Watch the playlist of commercials below: