What’s up with the VW commercial where it overvoices “claim yours today” (yeah, I dont think it’s on anymore but i’m STILL wondering.) It says that as a guy, i think, looking like Seinfeld a bit, LICKS a VW.
The basic part is clear, licking to claim one’s territory as the other people who want the car are too grossed out to approach it.
But what the dealie with the guy, i think, on the cell phone that says something like “get the red one” or something like that? Is it two guy friends, one of which is looking at cars for his friend? The other guy seems to be the same age, thus not a relative, and it seems strange for guys to do that for friends.* Are the two people SO’s? Have I gotten one or both genders wrong?
Or maybe, it wasnt even a cell phone convo? Or maybe, the other person wasn’t instructing the guy to claim his VW?
I’m totally confused. I have a feeling i’ll :smack:myself when I find out what the deal is.
*insert caveat that most women wouldnt even shop for cars for their friends.
The three people who come up at the end and are disturbed by the guy licking the door handle aren’t that guy’s friends. They’re the dealer and another couple who want to buy that particular car, which is the only one of that model and color left on the lot.
I’m not sure why the guy couldn’t buy the car right away on his own. Apparently, he needed his friend to show up with a suitcase full of money or something. Anyway, the point is that the guy he called hasn’t shown up yet, so he slobbers all over the car’s door handle so no one else will open it and drive away.
I have always found that commercial to be disgusting. I had to have my son explain it to me. I, too, have wondered why he doesn’t just go in and make a deal on it if he wants it that bad. Also, I have never seen a new car dealer have only ONE car of a certain model and color (but the may just be becuase I’ve always live in the “big city”).
Ludovic, I’ve always understood him to say “they’ve got the red one”.
I doubt if I would ever buy a Volkswagen, but if I happened to have been on the fence about it, that commercial would have sealed it for me.
it’s just meant to be absurd. The guy likes that car so much that he licks it to ensure the couple that is walking out chooses a different car. I doubt anyone is supposed to get anything more out of it than that.
There are a couple other adds with similar moments in them, including one for some “pizza bites things” in which two kids are sitting eating the bites off the same plate and when they get to the last one, the one guy grabs it, the other guy grabs his wrist and licks the pizza bite thing and the first guy tears free looks at the food his friend has licked and then shrugs and eats it. The message… so good you’d even eat one your friend has licked! Good advertising? who knows… but it’s not really meant to be analysed too much. Same with the VW ad.
I think that VW ad is cute and off-the-cuff right up until the moment someone starts asking the whys and wherefores of it.
Without putting too much thought in to it (the mere fact that I’m posting about it violates that assumption righ there), I believe that the couple walking out with the salesman have “rights” on the car as there’s actually a salesman with them drooling to make a sale.
The guy who licks the car apparently just got on the lot and has yet to have a salesman sidle up to him (I know, can you believe it ?) to “push his paperwork through.”
That reminds me of an equally gross advertisement for a submarine sandwich fast-food restaurant. (I forget which one.)
A well-dressed woman, walking down the street with a well-dressed man, notices something in a garbage can as she passes by. To the man’s amazement, she goes over to the garbage can, reaches inside, pulls out a partially eaten submarine sandwich wrapped in paper with the fast-food restaurant’s logo on it, and eats it!
The intent of the ad is, of course, our sandwiches are so good that you’ll even be tempted to eat one that’s been in the trash. The effect of the ad, however, is “ewwwwww!”
I thought that commercial was funny. My siblings and friends and I used to do that kind of thing all the time (lick something so one of the other ones wouldn’t take/eat it.) 'Course it doesn’t always work, especially with your SO.
Yeah. I see that as funny in a Homer Simpson sort of way but not incentive to go buy the products. Advertising executives are a very strange group of people. I don’t think they get out enough.
Yep, it’s a “you won’t take this one now!” type thing, normally used in pizza situations.
Back in college, we’d ordered a pizza and this one mooch didn’t chip in, so he wasn’t getting any. Well, the ass picked up a slice, licked it, and proudly stated, “You aren’t going to eat that one!” So I said, “Neither are you” and spit on it.
Hmmm…interesting quandary. You could say that the couple wins–they could always go around and open the door from the other side, after all. On the other hand, the guy might win, because it would be easier to take the key into the restroom and wash it off than it would be to bring out a bucket of soapy water and a rag to wash off the door handle. Then again, you could wash the handle later, since he didn’t lick both of them. I’d say the couple wins, unless the guy has the presence of mind to lick both handles, in which case, I’d say he wins.
VW has, for quite some time, been running a series of ads meant to give the impression that “you better get to your dealer now before the one you want is gone!!”. I always took it as somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but who knows…I suppose there are some folks who will believe it and rush right down to “claim theirs”.
Marketing, especially at the national level, has long since abandoned the notion that it exists to convince you to buy something. We’re drowning in so much advertising that marketers consider it a success if you even remember the commercial and the product it’s plugging. In that respect, this particular spot is, in the marketing world, a major success: Not only do you remember the ad, you remember it’s for Volkswagen. When you consider just how much advertising you’re subjected to in the course of a week, the fact that you remember this one thirty-second spot is an accomplishment that should not be casually brushed aside.
For comparison, do you remember that high-profile ad that premiered during the Superbowl a couple of years ago, where a skydiver on a snowboard shares his soft drink with an acrobatic goose? Quick, which soft drink was that advertising? Coke, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Sprite, what? If you can recall the product, you’re doing better than 95% of the viewers out there.
The Volkswagen ad isn’t designed to make you want to go out and buy a car right there. It’s designed to stick in your head so the next time you think about going out and looking at a new car, Volkswagen is one of the three or four brands that comes to mind. That’s all.
Granted, that’s the ad’s AIM, and in that, it has indeed succeeded: namely, it produced an annoying ad yet not so annoying that I will forswear ever purchasing said product ever.
Which is not the case with most such ads. I do indeed remember the products, but then boycott them.
I’ve been feeling for a few years that the problem is that I am now older than the aforementioned ad execs. I feel like a cranky old bat when some skateboarder is screaming at me to buy something. Commercials like the door licking one just serve to amplify the passing of any hipness I might have been able to claim. On the other hand some of my favorite songs are being used in commercials now…waaah!
