Automobile Marketers Love Downtown L.A.

Mazda, parked in front of downtown's Ciudad restaurant

We've chronicled quite a few downtown L.A.-set car ads in our ongoing series "Los Angeles: Ad Town."

You've probably noticed it too. It's actually a fun game to play: "Spot the Downtown image in The Latest Auto Commercial."

Now, the L.A. Times looks deeper into the all of those car ads shot downtown:

"Upper Grand, lower Grand, the bridges, the 2nd Street tunnel, the Flower Street pedestrian bridges — we call it 'the back lot,' " said production manager David Doumeng, who has worked for the last decade on any number of downtown-shot ads for Toyota and other automakers.

The inadvertent result has been the transformation of the area into a chic, desirable, all-purpose metropolis, at least on your television screen.

It might seem strange that car commercials want a cityscape as a backdrop. But if a car traveling the open road of the countryside can convey freedom, and still does in many car ads, cities are synonymous with sophistication.

That's where downtown L.A. comes in. "What other place in the city is like this?" said Betsy Ann Faiella, a freelance production manager with more than 16 years' experience in the business. "You want 'young, hip, urban, elegant.'? Then it's a shot of a car pulling up in front of a downtown hotel."

It's also the go-to place when clients tell production people such as Doumeng and Faiella, "We're looking for a generic cityscape." The trick then is to offer urban images that aren't linked directly to an identifiable, culturally specific place, such as New York. That New York is often prohibitively expensive and film production is primarily located here helps immeasurably, but the all-purpose urban-upscale look of downtown L.A. seals the deal.

I do take issue with the Times writing that it's a new phenomenon. I believe we've seen car ads set in downtown L.A. for years.

(Check out all of our Ad Town posts here.)