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1) I am a marketing major and as I've stated before, the number one "no-no" of promoting luxury goods is acknowledging your competitors. By lending them that credence, you indeed insinuate that others create products that are at least as good as yours. In fact, ads like these truthfully create an aura of inadequacy as they feel the need to show off and smirk at competing brands and models in a markedly immature way.
Yes, but this is somewhat different because there's no direct reference to Lexus. Plus, consensus seems to be the "self parking" feature of the LS (as much as I love the car) is basically useless and a gimmick and worthy of poking fun at.
2) Nice how they parked it between an LS 460 and IS 350.
Yup, but it's subtle, you only see a small bit of each car.
3) Publicity is never a bad thing
Works both ways - we're talking about the ad, ergo it's successful.
For all the useless gimmick that the self parking feature is, IIRC BMW, Merc & Audi are all working on developing the same/similar systems. Wonder how Audi plan on marketing the system in the A8 after this?
p.s. Pretty funny ad. I like. Dunno why the use the A4 to try and poke fun at the LS, but hey, all in the name of a decent laugh