Victory Auto Wreckers Unveil Updated Ad, Fans Not Pleased

By Jim Bochnowski in News on May 1, 2015 9:35PM

In case you missed this groundbreaking news, the updated and "improved" Victory Auto Wreckers commercial debuted today:

So, it's more or less the old commercial, just updated with "3-D" computer graphics straight from the early '90s. And there's a T. rex for some reason. But seriously, is there any difference between those graphics and this? Fans are not impressed by the updated ad either, heading to Victory's Facebook page and leaving angry comments, one fan even exclaimed that "I'll be shutting off my t.v. anytime this airs bring back the original!"

To the ad's credit, it does showcase the renovated auto yard which no longer highlights the iconic mud and grime that was featured so prominently in the original. The new ad also features the company's website, which recently hosted a contest for fans to update the old ad. And that is where the high drama of local television commercial production comes into play.

As originally constructed, the eight weekly winners of the online contest to modernize the Victory Auto Wreckers commercial were awarded cash prizes. The company then thought it would be fun to grant the overall winner of the contest a chance to see their homemade ad on TV before the new commercial debuted. Wouldn't you know, on an online voting form there were voter irregularities. Shocking, we know.

According to a post on the company's Facebook page:

"This contest was supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be for the people of the Chicago-land area, who have been watching (or, more likely, being subjected to) our commercial for the last 30 years. It was not meant for anyone OUTSIDE of the local area...California, Washington, Bangladesh.... It is a shame that some contestants felt that they needed to "win at all costs.""

First of all, props to whoever cared enough about this competition that they tried to spam the voting in order to get their commercial on local television. Jesse Padilla, the marketing manager for Victory Auto Wreckers, told Chicagoist that the company was unprepared for the sheer volume and irregular voting patterns for what they hoped would just be a fun contest. Padilla told us that they originally thought about going into the voting data and pulling out all the suspicious votes, but that was ruled to be overly time consuming. Therefore, the company basically threw up their hands and declared everyone a winner. Take that, voter fraud.

The local Fox affiliate and My50 Chicago have been playing all eight of the winning ads on TV for the past week, even giving each of the winners time before their commercial to promote their own website. Which is actually very nice of them after all those meddling ballot box stuffers tried to spoil the fun. You can watch all of the winning ads here.

So once again, congratulations to Victory Auto Wreckers and all the local creative types who offered up their updated takes on a true original. Even if you're one of the people who tried to sabotage a local contest for free publicity. You just gave your fellow contestants equal air time, so joke's on you.

Additional reporting by Lisa White