Goodyear’s Ad Campaign for Run On Flat

From YouTube, here is a collection of three Goodyear ads for its Run On Flat tires. To be honest, I’ve never been able to figure out if these ads are supposed to be satiric or serious. If they are meant to be funny, they’re not. They come off as cruel, even sadistic (hint: slapstick ceases to be funny when people are seriously injured or killed). I don’t think the tire industry is going to sell consumers on run-flats using these types of scare tactics. Convenience and performance are the selling points. Certainly one could go for the safety angle, but not like this.