Well at least in the marketing department they seem to be crushing the two other luxury car makers. Hyundai’s new print ad (seen below and in the most recent issue of Newsweek) for their new Equus luxury sedan is doing everything right.

The layout can be broken down into three parts, an intriguing headline, a beautiful image of the car, and a call to action. They have excluded all extraneous information that only seriously interested buyers want about horsepower, price, design, mpg, and moved it to their website. This is a good example of a company realizing that people reading a magazine need to be grabbed quickly. The finished ad is doing an excellent job of establishing a new product in the marketplace. If the reader is engaged and interested, they will go looking for more information.

On the other hand, Jaguar’s new print ad (seen below and in the most recent issue of Wired magazine) starts strong with an announcement of their most recent award (yawn), proceed to list how the car was constructed, the 5.0L V8 engine and so on. Jaguar is supposed to be top-quality – good construction, smooth ride and mechanical reliability should be a given. What else can you tell us? At the bottom of the ad, they even list the starting price with an asterisk and disclaimer below it. If Jag’s target has to think about the starting price (with probably zero options included), maybe the brand, which is supposed to emanate luxury, is aiming a little too low.

Jaguar XJ Print Ad

Finally, we see the Porsche ad (seen below and also in the most recent issue of Wired Magazine). I must say I’m confused by the new Porsche campaign. I am a big fan of a good creative concept but this one seems to be reaching pretty far. A good print advertisement should highlight either the strongest or most unique features the product it is trying to sell. If you need to convince me to buy a Porsche because it has the trunk and storage space for mulch and not because of its speed, handling and comfort, then something seems amiss. I realize that these items are tied into the ad in the body copy but I can’t help but think this is just a poor attempt at a humorous ad.

Porsche Print Ad

Until Porsche and Jaguar begin to act like the luxury, already well-known, brands that they are in their marketing efforts, Hyundai will continue to catch up to them by acting like the brand it aspires to become.