OPED: Hey OEMs, We See Your Dumb AI Videos. We Hate Them.

By "Crusher" Carl – 28 Years in the Seat, 0 Years of Patience Left, 2 Thrown Phones in a Borrow Pit.

OEMs Hey

10:18

Carl is pissed with good reason.

Listen up, you marketing geniuses who think a "track pad" is something you wipe Cheeto dust off of.

I saw your new AI-generated commercial. The one with the cartoon beaver in a hard hat and a giant dancing robot shooting rainbows out of its bucket while a CGI eagle with three eyes screams "RELIABILITY" in a voice that sounds like Siri having a stroke.

What in the actual fresh hell was that?

I showed it to my foreman. He watched four seconds, said "what is this manuer," and walked away to go find a cigarette he didn't even want. I showed it to my 12-year-old daughter. She watched the whole thing and said, "Dad, is this for people with the tism'?" Then she went back to watching someone mukbang ramen in a diaper on her phone.

You managed to insult both of us. That takes talent. Bad talent. Embarrassing talent.

We Are Not Five Years Old (We Are Worse)

Let me break something to you, gently, with a 4-ton breaker attachment that has personally ruined three concrete foundations and one marriage:

The people buying your million-dollar machines are not sitting in a sandbox with plastic shovels. We are not watching seasame street while we wait for nap time. We are not impressed by gay cartoon gnomes operating mini-loaders while a ukulele plays in the background.

We are grown ass men who wake up at 4:30 AM with back pain, a grudge against the world, and a left knee that predicts rain better than the local news. We drink coffee so black it has its own gravitational pull. Our lunchboxes smell like diesel fuel and divorce. We have been married 2.3 times on average and have at least one restraining order among the crew.

One guy has two. You know who you are, Randy.

We do not want to see a friendly animated duck driving a skid steer. We want to see torque. We want to see cycle times. We want to see a machine bury a bucket so deep in compacted clay that the earth itself groans and the operator has to apologize to the foreman.

Show me that. Not a dancing robot doing a Fortnite move from three years ago.

Who Is This Even For?

I asked around the job site. Here's what the boys said.

Write these down. Frame them. This is your target demographic.

Tommy, 51, grader operator:

"I thought my phone got hacked by a Chinese gambling app. I threw it into the borrow pit. The OEM owes me a screen protector and three hours of my life back."

Rico, 44, foreman:

"If I wanted to see a magical creature shoot rainbows, I'd stop taking my blood pressure medication and just let the hallucinations happen naturally. Tell them to make the AC unit stop blowing hot air instead. That's a miracle I'd pay for."

Sully, 59, retired (still shows up to complain, still owes everyone money):

"Back in my day, ads just showed a guy in a hard hat pointing at a machine. He was fat. He had a mustache. He looked like he'd killed a man with a wrench and felt fine about it. That's who I trust. Not a damn cartoon elephant humping a camel."

Me:

"Would you buy a machine because a cartoon raccoon winked at you?"

Everyone in unison:

"What? No. Get out of here. Are you on something?"

There you have it. Market research. From actual humans who actually spend actual money and have actual back problems. You're welcome.

Send the check to my PO box.

The AI Glitches Are Insulting Our Intelligence

Oh, and by the way? We know it's AI-generated. We can tell because the buckets have six teeth on one side and four on the other. The tracks are floating six inches off the ground. The operator in the "cab" has seven fingers, a smile that looks like a haunted mannequin, and eyes that are slowly drifting in opposite directions like a confused lizard.

In frame three, the boom cylinder is attached to nothing but pure imagination and a prayer. The hydraulic fluid appears to be glowing neon pink. I don't know what kind of pressures you're running in that imaginary system, but on my site, that's called a catastrophic failure, a three-day environmental cleanup, and a phone call to the lawyer I keep on retainer for exactly this nonsense.

You're using artificial intelligence to sell us real machines?

That's like using a cardboard steak to sell a grill. That's like using a picture of water to put out a fire. That's like sending a memo to a mule. Just film a real excavator digging a real hole. It's not that hard. I'll let you borrow mine for a case of beer and a half-eaten breakfast burrito and the cost of diesel. That's my standard rate.

The burrito is non-negotiable.

The Only Animals We Want to See (Final List, No Revisions)

I'll help you out, free of charge, because I'm generous like that and also because I'm tired of muting my TV. Here are the only acceptable animals in heavy equipment advertising. Print this out. Tape it to your monitor. Show it to your "creative director" who has never touched a hydraulic lever in his life.

A mule. That machine works like one. Stubborn. Reliable. Will kick you if you mistreat it. Will also stare at you with quiet judgment while you explain why you're behind schedule.

A pissed-off honey badger. Not cute. Not wearing a little hat. Not holding a tiny stop paddle. Just teeth, rabies, and a complete and total disregard for its own safety. If your machine doesn't have "I will fight a semi-truck and possibly win" energy, don't put it on my screen.

An attractive female operator. Specifically one that knows her shit. She's been hit on, talked down to, and told to "go get the paperwork" roughly 4,000 times. She's still here. She can back a lowboy into a coffin-sized spot without spilling her coffee, diagnose a hydraulic whine from 50 yards, and outrun every man on the crew. She's hungry, focused, slightly feral, and so far out of our league you'd need a crane. We call that a unicorn. Because she doesn't exist in your stupid AI videos. She exists on real job sites, running real iron, while your marketing team renders another cartoon goblin. Go find her. Film her. Put her in the ad. No pink wrap.

No beavers. No otters. No bunnies. No cartoon eagles in hard hats with little name tags that say "Safety Steve." And absolutely NO ROBOTS doing Fortnite dances.

I swear if I see one more robot dabbing, I'm buying a used Cat from 1998 with no electronics and run it until I die.

And Don't Get Me Started on "Girl Boss" Editions

I saw an ad. I saw it with my own two eyes. A machine wrapped in neon pink, sponsored by an energy drink called "Sparkle & Conquer," with a tagline that said "She Digs Different."

Listen to me very carefully. If my operator shows up to dig a trench fueled by that nonsense, he better be ready for the crew to rename his radio handle to "Princess" before the first bucket hits the dirt. He will never live it down. We will put a pink ribbon on his hard hat. We will play "Man! I Feel Like a Woman" every time he lifts a load.

This is not a threat. This is a promise.

I don't care if he's a 250-pound former linebacker with a beard that scares children. The crew has no mercy. The crew has no boundaries. The crew has a Bluetooth speaker and absolutely zero professional restraint.

Save the pink wrap for a Barbie toy. Not my job site.

Your "Construction Core" Aesthetic Is a Lie

Your marketing team thinks "weathered" means buying a $90 pre-distressed flannel from Nordstrom that has never seen a day of real work.

Weathered means my left knee predicts the rain better than the Weather Channel. Weathered means my back sounds like a bag of hammers going down a flight of stairs every time I stand up. Weathered means my lunchbox has a permanent stain shaped like the state of Texas and I'm not sure if it's coffee or motor oil or both.

You want to sell to us?

Show us a machine that starts when it's 10 degrees outside and the wind is blowing sideways. Show us a cab that doesn't rattle our teeth out over every railroad crossing. Show us a heater that actually heats and an AC that actually cools and a radio that picks up more than two stations, neither of which are country.

Show us a warranty that doesn't require a blood oath, a notary, and 4,000 pages of paper work.

Do that, and we'll buy it. No CGI. No robots. No cartoon beavers.

A Final Thought From the Seat

We are your customers. Not your children. Not your focus group of graphic design interns who think "construction core" is an aesthetic on Pinterest and own boots that have never seen mud.

We are tired. We are sore. We are carrying this industry on our crooked spines and our replaced knees and our shoulders that pop in ways shoulders should not pop.

Do not show us a cartoon badger. Show us respect.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go yell at a cloud. It's shaped like a dancing robot, and it's pissing me off.

About the Author: "Crusher" Carl has been operating heavy equipment since before AI knew what a shovel was. He currently runs a 2022 excavator (paid off), owns three hard hats (only trusts one), and has been banned from two OEM booths at trade shows for "aggressive pointing" and "making a young marketing intern cry." He considers both a compliment.