Both commercials had the same French line at the end, fwiw. I wasn't impressed by either, but I'm sure Ford did it to complete the putdown. ...
Ahh, you're right. I missed that as I didn't re-watch the Caddy one before posting, and I guess I must have tuned-out by then when I would see it on-air. The Caddy guy is also plugging in his Caddy EV.
But again, it's just a commercial. But people got all worked up about the 'message'. Heck, you either agree or disagree or don't care, they are not forcing their message on you. They are just selling cars (as Midpack pointed out - going right to their target audience).
And I just noticed by re-viewing it, when the Caddy guy talks about the other countries, he also throws in a
"Those other countries think we're nuts. But whatever. ...."
So little things like the "But whatever...." is what makes it feel more self-deprecating (or self-acknowledging?) than condescending.
I hate almost all advertising, it annoys the heck out of me, and I can't believe most companies are so poor at it it. On a scale from 1-10, I'd probably rate 1/3 of commercials with a negative number, as they are just plain annoying, or actually make their target customers appear stupid, or just totally miss out on dong anything positive for their product. Few would get above a "+3" rating from me. I might give the Caddy commercial a "+5", I like the 'sass' factor (that is still a long way from a '+10'). I'm undecided on this Ford one, I guess clever to parody the Caddy one, beyond that, I don't know.
-ERD50