It used to be that vehicles in car commercials either had no license
plate or it was a regular or personalized plate.  Why is it that now
and days the vehicles in most all car commercials have a license plate
that is painted the same color as the body of the vehicle?

Maybe this transition has taken place because it was determined to be
more visually pleasing, or because of some law that cars in video must
be shown with a license plate.  I am really interested in the mindset
and the reasoning behind this transition.

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Clarification of Question by nibroc-ga on 03 Oct 2005 11:29 PDT

To further clarify, I think I will be happy if someone can just tell
me the first car commercial to ever use a painted license plate,
rather than just a normal license plate or no plate at all, as well as
the reason WHY this was done.

Surely the director of the commercial or the advertising agency that
put the commercial together knows.

Same reason why they tint the windows and windshield Black. 
Uniformity of the vehicle to draw attention only to the lines and
printed text.

Sure, but if that were the only reason they would just leave the
license plate mounting empty like they used to.  I doubt that is the
only reason.  Someone somewhere decided that putting a license plate
that was painted to match the body color was the way to go, or it was
required by law for some silly reason.

It is obviously easier just to leave the license plates off
altogether, rather than send them to the paint shop or attach them
prior to the vehicles painting.  There has to be some overriding
reason all this effort is taken.

The practice is known as "Greeking" out the license plate content. 
The primary reason for "greeking" out the license plate is to remove
the regional features contained on plates.  Advertisers fear that if
the car in the ad displayed, let's say, California plates it may
discourage a New Yorker from purchasing the car.  In other words,
there's nothing to be gained by having a regional plate on a national
commercial.  Secondly, there are legal issues with license plates
known as "clearences" meaning that the actual display of numbers on
the plate cannot be the same as an actual license plate owner, as the
owner of the actual plate would have a small chance to claim in court
that by using his/her license plate, the company was inferring that
him/her was the driver in the ad.  This may seem rediculous, but car
companies are known to have deep pockets and are prone to such
frivilous law suits.