Badge Advertising

Over the course of the age of automobiles, companies have done what they can to sell cars. Everything from marketing gimmicks to inaccurate fuel ratings . The one that usually goes unnoticed is badging. I mean hey, what do you see everyday? Cars. While driving? Cars. While doing anything in life? Cars. You're going to be seeing one at some point during the course of the day, so why not make a subtle form of advertising.

Here in the United States, one of the first things to be advertised on a on a car was the Ford V-8. It was prominently displayed  right between the headlights so everyone could see that the Ford was packing heat. As the years passed more and more car companies produced V8 engines and there was plenty of unique "V8" badging to see all the way up into the 50's. Into the 60's, the "V8" badge went away and the Cubic Inches came to play. Almost every car with a V8 had the cubic inches displayed somewhere on the car, usually on the front fenders. When you would see that car, you knew what it had under the hood and that became more pertinent when the Muscle Car wars came about in the mid-60's. When all the street racers would pull up to the stop lights, they could look over and knew (or thought they knew) what they were up against. As the Fuel Crisis of 1973 came along and big engines were on their way out the door and new fuel efficient cars were being produced, nobody really had an interest in cubic inches anymore. Into the 80's, 90's and 2000's we saw engine sizes again, but in the form of Liters.

One of the more common things that was advertised, was the transmission. The automatic transmission was considered a luxury item in the 40's, optional in higher end cars like Oldsmobile's and Cadillac's , so what better way to advertise this fancy new contraption than to slap a badge on a car. The Hydra-Matic was used in a wide variety of vehicles in the 50's, so you could find badging on a anything from a Nash Ambassador to a GMC Pickup truck. Many companies over the years have advertised their automatic transmission. Even the small car manufacturer DAF advertised their Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT), the Variomatic, on the back of their cars. After the '73 Fuel Crisis, when fuel economy was big deal, the Japanese swept in with their compact cars and 5-speed manual transmissions became the advertising rage. From the 70's into the 80's you could find a "5-Speed" badge on many vehicles from around the world and you knew that someone was getting reasonable mileage (and maybe having fun doing it in the process). Since then, companies don't really flaunt what transmission they have anymore.

The next type of advertising that were used, were decals. In the late 60's, the advertising decal came about during the muscle car wars and was not so subtle. We saw such cars as the Super Bee, The Judge, AAR Cuda, Daytona, Yenko, Trans Am, and BOSS 302. Cars were coming in bright colors with loud decal packages. Through the 70's we saw pretty much the same thing as the late 60's. Vehicles like the Oldsmobile 442 and Dodge "Little Red Express Truck" still advertise it's muscle, regardless if was there or not, but companies like Jeep had special models that they wanted the general public to see. Along came the 80's with all sorts of decal goodness, everything from "Turbo" to "High Output 16-Valve". Into the 90's the advertising decals kind of went away.

Well, almost.

The decal rage dwindled down with the exception of pickup trucks. In the 80's the Japanese brought in their 4x4 pickups and made sure you knew that. Into the 90's the American companies took note and they prominently displayed "4x4" or "Off-Road" somewhere on the bed or tailgate. The 90's brought in the next big rage from the manufactures: ABS. There were many cars being equipped with this newly common safety feature and what better way to say "my car is better than yours".  There were many American cars in the 90's that had "ABS" decals and badging. Other than that, the 90's were pretty boring.

Into the 2000's, the advertising badging made it's rounds and came back to who's got the edge on saving fuel. We have seen a lot of Diesel (TDI, CRD, and BlueTec), FlexFuel, ECO, and Hybrid. I don't think today I can go a few miles without seeing "Hybrid" or "ECO" on a vehicle. With the advancements in engine technology, things like turbocharging are slowly starting to make an appearance again. We're starting to see badging like EcoBoost and EcoTec. Regardless of how you look at it, it's advertising. In this day and age, the Manufactures aren't stupid, they know you're going to see it. It may not get you down to the dealer floor, but it can get you to their website and that's all it takes.

I hope this gives you an idea that badging is more than it seems. While it can sometimes be annoying like the flamboyant decals of the Muscle Car era, or something as subtle as a "T" next to the engine displacement, it's there for you to notice and make you curious. Next time you're stuck in traffic or walking through a crowded parking lot, take a look, you might be surprised at what you find.