NoiseOFF - The Citizens Coalition Against Noise Pollution

This San Francisco car donation service is great for anyone thinking "Maybe I should donate my car!" They also let you donate a RV to a charity and save money on your taxes too.

Boom Car Ads

You might be surprised at the disturbing language and sexist content used by the car audio industry to market its products. It exhibits a new low of corporate irresponsibility and greed that is ruining communities all over the country.

These ads are not designed to appeal to the motorist looking to upgrade the factory speakers in their vehicle to enjoy more beautiful sounding music.

The Mobile Electronics Retailers Association (MERA), a trade group representing dealers and installers of aftermarket car audio systems, issued a position statement warning its member companies "not to use symbols, messages or suggest behavior that would adversely affect the industry. Irresponsible promotion could negatively impact the perception of our industry by the public at large and could be used against us by activists or government to regulate our products and activities".

But that warning doesn't seem to stop its member companies from rolling out even more ad campaigns that promote thuggery. These ads are the smoking gun that they market their products as a means for anti-social motorists to create noise pollution. Feel free to use this material as evidence in litigation against the car audio industry and when presenting noise pollution ordinances in your community.

We have even more boom car marketing as evidence.

Magazines

CMP Information is the publisher of Car Sound & Performance Magazine. Primedia is the largest publisher of enthusiast automotive magazines and websites with over fourty different titles, including Car Audio Magazine. Together, these two corporations have extensive reach into the consumer market for boom car equipment, hot-rodding and motorcycles.

Most of these ads are also found in mens' magazines including FHM and Maxim. Hip-Hop culture magazines such as Vibe, XXL and The Source also carry these ads.

Manufacturers

Boss Audio Systems ad is a depiction of a punk giving the finger with the caption 'Turn it down? I don't think so'. Evidently, this is what this company thinks of your rights as a citizen.

A Bazooka subwoofer as an extended phallus. The ad suggests 'bigger performance' and 'long lines of chicks who want to check out your tube'. This ad should validate the theory that boomers are insecure about their manhood and probably inadaquate.

The sex-via-noise theory was reported to the American Psychiatric Association by Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Armand N. Nicholi, Jr., more than 35 years ago. Some sexually troubled college-age men relieve their feelings of sexual inadequacy with a preoccupation for noise making technologies.

The Cerwin Vega ad is a depiction of a mummy holding its ears with the caption 'Shake the living - Wake the dead'.

The Hollywood Sound Labs ad copy reads: 'The word on the Street... Shake Seats and Annoy Neighbors'.

The JBL Car Audio ad copy reads: 'Either we love bass or hate your neighbors'. We take this to mean that boomers who hate their neighbors should buy JBL. Isn't it interesting that JBL cites hatred for others as a means to sell a product.

The JL Audio ad copy reads: 'Be Very Afraid'. Fear is used as a marketing message for these ads, to suggest that boomers will be feared by others. It takes a special kind of cowardice to provoke others while in a moving car.

We presume this sexist ad by MA Audio is meant to appeal to men who think they will attract a woman with a boom car. There is a name for vehicles built for this purpose: masturbation-fueled car. Example: "Check out the tool in the masturbation-fueled car".

The MB Quart ad copy reads: 'Bolt-On Performance They'll Hear a Mile Away.'

Sony's ad is shameless, 'It's not my remote, its my detonator'. This ad equates boom audio equipment as a weapon, specifically an explosive device. Considering the heightened sensitivities of war and terrorism, we wonder why Sony thought this ad would be socially acceptable. Sony's line of boom car equipment is marketed under the brand name, 'X-Plod'.

How Pioneer Electronics executives envision urban life for us all. These same executives live in nice affluent suburbs where they don't have to hear this crap roll by.

The ad attempts to speak in the voice of a lone boom car owner driving down a rainy street, but the underlying message is that Pioneer Electronics owns the road. We beg to differ.

Pioneer Electronics depicts gloom, blight and a sense of menace in these three ads. You can do something about it: Boycott Pioneer Electronics.

We have even more boom car marketing as evidence.