Mazda has had its ups and downs on what we might call the “cool scale”. It majored in innovative and aspirational in its early days, but its products and image were not exactly scintillating in the 1990s, under Ford’s stewardship (MX and RX excepted, of course).
Nowadays, Mazda is very much a cool carmaker again. Exactly when did it turn the corner? You could argue the catalyst was an American television commercial that featured a new catchphrase: “zoom zoom”, complete with an even catchier song. It first aired in October 2000.
The idea was to link a childlike joy of movement with Mazda cars. It opened with a 10-year-old boy, Micah Kanters, whispering “zoom zoom” to the camera as if he’d discovered a secret.
The advertisement made a huge impact in the US and within a year “zoom zoom” had become Mazda North America’s official slogan. And then it spread all around the world.
Thirty years later, Kanters told Mel Magazine that it made him quite a celebrity, although fame had its downsides. He was teased at school and there were even persistent rumours that he had been hit by a car and died on set. He filmed two more in the series in the early-2000s; he’s now a lawyer, by the way. No, we don’t know what he drives.
So anyway, “zoom zoom” got people really fizzed up about Mazda again. The mainstream cars still weren’t brilliant at that time, but the new-gen Mazda6 (2002) and Mazda3 (2003) weren’t far away.