I’ts the one where a guy is hurrying to a wedding in a Jetta, everyone’s waiting for him, he’s late, the bride apparently marries the best man? “Fasten your seatbelts” on screen. Huh? Can someone explain this?
I think the premise is that the guy driving the Jetta wants to stop the wedding, and there is a little hanky panky going on between them.
Maybe it is a public service. If you are rushing to get to the church on time, you still should use your seatbelt. Do you suppose they’d get a tax write off?
But even if he’s trying to stop the wedding, doesn’t that imply that Jettas aren’t fast enough to get you there on time?
That’s the part I don’t get: The ‘fasten-your-seatbelt’ part implies fast, the ‘not-getting-there-on-time’ part implies slow.
It always seemed to me that the premise of the ad was that we, the viewers, were supposed to assume that the guy racing in the VW was the groom. Then they hit us with the twist at the end, and we reorient our thinking to wonder what sort of relationship he had with the woman, and what will happen next. I think the ‘fasten your seatbelts’ refers to the sense of anticipation, that anything could happen.
The advertising agency and the people at VW would be smiling and rubbing their hands if they could see the sort of atenton people pay to their ads.
“We need to get a life” applies to more than half the stuff on these boards. Valid question. But that why we love 'em so much.
To the OP: I’ve never understood that commercial.
So, nothing to add, really.
And by the way, mhendo, the thinking that because you remember an ad means you will like/buy the product is a phallacy that MA has been shoving down their clients throats for years.
I agree totally. But, in the absence of any really hard evidence about the correlation between ad recall and product purchase, the very least that advertisers and agencies can hope for is that people will notice and remeber the ads themselves.
BTW, if anyone is interested in the beginnings of VW’s funky advertisements, a good book to check out is Thomas Frank, The Conquest of Cool: Business Culture, Counterculture and the Rise of Hip Consumerism, a well-written account of the 1960s transformation of the advertising industry, written by the editor of The Baffler magazine.
There are actually studies to support this. I looked and couldn’t quickly find a cite. ‘Advertising Age’ would be a good start.
Generally, I like VW ads, but this one…I don’t know.
I’m in a field closely associated with ad-men (and women) and what scares me is the process that bad ads goes through.
Next time you see a really bad ad think about this. First, everyone’s sitting around a room shooting out ideas (AD: “Bobby, what have you got?” Bobby: “uh…fuck it - have a guy late for a wedding.”) Then the art director says, “I like it.” He takes it to the AE (account exec.) and the AE says, “I like it.” Then they mock it up, present it to the client and he says, "I like it ! " Then said client pays millions to foist this piece of shit upon unsuspecting us. Always amazes me…
I thought the ad was pretty straightforward, except for the twist that he’s her lover and not the groom. I mean he gets there just in time for “Speak now or forever hold your peace (or piece?:D)” That’s about in time to stop a weeding, I think. I dunno: Guy rushes to church to take his lover away from her wedding and arrives just in time. Not the greatest ad, but nothing seemed complicated to me.
Strange, but I’m pretty sure I just read someone posting this commercial question recently but haven’t found it.
First thing I thought as well, handy. It was over in MPSIMS, though, as I don’t understand this commercial.