Arbitrary car commercial copy.

Arbitrary car commercial copy is eating shit.

I just saw a car commercial featuring a voiceover that said, "Introducing the first-ever Kia Seltos."

The ad was completely normal, boring, and utterly forgettable. . . save for that line. That phrase stuck out to me. The "first-ever" Kia Seltos. What is that supposed to mean? "Seltos" is something they just made up. It has no inherent significance. Why should I care that this is Kia's "first-ever" Seltos? Seltos doesn't mean anything. What is it, some kind of bastardization of some vaguely Greek word? First Seltos or millionth Seltos, a car company can add or drop product names whenever they feel like it. Who gives a shit that this is the "first" one?

I could understand if the line was, for example, "introducing Kia's first-ever. . ." something else, like their first-ever pickup truck, or their first-ever electric vehicle, or their first-ever barrel of urine. These descriptors might at least provide the average layperson some new information about Kia, a vehicle brand I'm assuming most people rarely think about.

But no, this is Kia's "first-ever" Seltos and nothing more, as if the Seltos trademark exists as its own independent, ethereal concept and they just happened to be the genius company to summon it into existence for the first time. This is what they spent airtime conveying to me so I could apparently give them some free advertising for you. ✍︎