Where does the sun always shine? In car commercials

Turn on the TV, flip through a magazine, scroll through Instagram: chances are, the car you see driving by is an SUV, driving in the sunshine, with a man behind the wheel. A study by Validators examining the advertising campaigns of thirty car brands in the Netherlands provides an overview of the automotive category.

The first thing that stands out: of all the advertisements analyzed, 68 percent feature an SUV or crossover. The sedan, which for years was the face of car advertising, now accounts for a meager 3 percent. The same percentage applies to the hatchback. The message is clear: anyone still advertising a regular station wagon is doing so these days with almost no company in the advertising world.

When it comes to powertrains, the choice has long since been made. In 65 percent of the advertisements, a fully electric car takes center stage. If you include hybrids and plug-ins, 88 percent of all cars shown are now electrified. Gasoline has almost disappeared from the picture: 3 percent. Advertising reality is thus well ahead of showroom reality, where internal combustion engines still account for a significant portion of sales.

Always Sunny

And then there’s the scenery. In 78 percent of all advertisements, the sun is shining. Rain accounts for 5 percent, variable weather for 4 percent, and snow remains below 1 percent. For a country where, roughly every other year, it rains more than the average summer vacation can handle, that’s a striking choice. The category has elevated sunshine to the status of the norm, even though almost no one has experienced that from their own driveway.

Still, that standard isn’t set in stone. A few brands deliberately feature rain in nearly four out of every ten advertisements, using the weather to demonstrate traction and reliability under all conditions—exactly the kind of claim that has a credible foundation in the Netherlands.

The industry’s tone is also predominantly serious. Eighty percent of the communications contain no humor whatsoever, and where humor does appear, it is usually light and restrained. A small number of brands are exceptions to this. Among brands that explicitly position themselves in the premium segment, humor is systematically absent. This aligns with their positioning, although it also makes the top end of the market strikingly interchangeable in terms of tone.

The man is driving, the woman is talking

The most interesting finding concerns the people depicted. Of the advertisements featuring a visible driver, 85 percent show a man behind the wheel. Women account for 15 percent. Only a handful of brands come close to a balanced representation; in the vast majority of the category, a man is driving in virtually every advertisement.

Interestingly, the audio sounds different from what’s shown on screen. In the voice-overs, the breakdown is already 55 percent men to 45 percent women. So, the industry is already much more diverse in sound than it is in appearance. That difference speaks volumes: it proves that there’s no substantive barrier to making the visuals reflect that diversity as well.

Children are the exception in car advertising: 88 percent of ads do not feature them. When they do appear, there is often a strategic reason for it. Brands that clearly position themselves as family cars do feature children and families, with percentages reaching up to 40 percent of their own ads—a deliberate, consistent choice that aligns well with their positioning. For brands that, on the other hand, position themselves as aspirational and premium, children are virtually absent. Both choices make sense given their respective positioning; what’s interesting is that most brands in between don’t make a choice at all.

Everyone plays it safe

The category also seeks a compromise in the message itself. Two-thirds of all communications combine an emotional and a functional approach: emotion as the vehicle, specifications as the basis. Purely emotional communication accounts for 21 percent, while purely functional communication accounts for 11 percent.

From Insight to Choice

Taken together, this paints a picture of a category that has used the same formula over the past six months: an electric SUV in the sunshine, with a man behind the wheel, no children, no humor, and a message that strikes a neat balance between emotion and reason.

The question for every automotive marketer is therefore clear. You know what your own brand communicates. Do you also know how closely it aligns with the rest of the category, and where there is room to deviate from that?

This study was conducted by Validators based on a Share of Content™ analysis of the advertising campaigns of thirty car brands in the Netherlands over the first five months of 2026 (January–May), weighted by media spend. For more insights and specific results (e.g., by car brand), Validators offers a paid dashboard.

This article was previously published on MarketingTribune on July 20, 2026.