This ad deserves the death sentence on twelve systems

While the "Darth Vader Kid" ad did not win our Least Shitty Ad award during the 2011 Super Bowl, it certainly was in no danger of winning one of the bad awards. Nor was this year's follow-up, which for most of its length is actually pretty good and might have contended for Least Shitty Ad. Then it takes a turn. Thus, we present:

The Ian Malcolm Memorial "Your Scientists Were So Preoccupied with Whether or Not They Could, They Didn't Stop to Think If They Should" Award

And your winner... that's right, it's Volkswagen!



This ad is a minute long. For the first, oh, 42 seconds, it is at least passably amusing and certifiably adorable. The fat dog is getting himself into shape! It's cute. Sure, it's barely an ad for the car, but we at least see the car, and VW is really counting on the fact that people are generally familiar with the Beetle anyway. Really, so far, so good.

Unfortunately, ads aren't 42 seconds long. It's at this point that we pull out to reveal that the first 42 seconds were actually being watched on a TV in the Mos Eisley cantina from Star Wars (I guess ads are 42 seconds long in galaxies far, far away). And then we get this nonsense:

Evazan: "That was great!"
Ponda Baba: [grunting noises]
Evazan: "No, the dog is funnier than the Vader kid." [begins to choke]
[Darth Vader, across the way, is Force-choking Evazan; finally he relents]
Evazan: "Sorry."
[Vader storms out]

And, scene.

Look, I like Star Wars. I only had to look up one of those character names, even. But what was the point of this? The ad with the dog has nothing to do with Star Wars, nor did it need to. And make no mistake about it, Volkswagen wants you to associate this ad with dogs AND Star Wars - just look at the teaser they put out a couple weeks before the Super Bowl:



Volkswagen is hardly the first advertiser to call back to a commercial of theirs that was popular in a previous year. Really, it happens all the time. But that doesn't make it funny when there's no legitimate tie-in anywhere to be found. All I get from this ad is that VW thought, "Hey, we've already got the rights to use the Star Wars characters in our ads... let's do it again!" But then they couldn't think of anything else to do with them, so they just had two super-fringe characters step in to editorialize on the unrelated ad they'd already created.

Hence why VW gets this additional, made-up award: for doing something that they COULD do without apparently ever stopping to ask whether they SHOULD do it. As much as I like Star Wars, it isn't inherently funny. Volkswagen would do well to remember that.

In which the blogger continues his campaign against Crispin Porter

Here at the Ad Wizards, we think most of the commercials we see on television could be a lot better. But then there's the work of one agency in particular that just makes our typin' fingers all red and itchy -- that would be the unwatchable oeuvre of Crispin Porter & Bogusky. Here we take a look at their latest effort to market the Volkswagen Routan:



Talking VW Beetle: Ahh, velcome Brooke Shields! Vat's on your mind?

Brooke Shields: Well, there's an epidemic sweeping the nation. Women everywhere are having babies just to get the new Volkswagen Routan.

The talking car isn't new -- they've used that in some recent work. Brooke Shields, however, is new. You know, it's hard to sell cars in a recession -- aren't we making it harder on the few consumers who do want to buy cars, by making them sift through peripheral weirdness like Beetles with German accents and B-Listers talking about some made-up, car-related baby boom?

Brooke Shields: Christine here is so seduced by German engineering, she's having a baby just to get it.

"And as soon as that baby is born, Christine is going to ship it off to an Engineering Boarding school in Hamburg, never to see her child again."

So I guess Crispin Porter's clever idea here is that "couples love the Routan minivan so much, they're going to get pregnant to justify buying one." That's such a bizarre, stupid idea, you have to wonder how they got there. Maybe they got an email from Volkswagen Marketing that looked like this:

Assignment:
Develop a new commercial for the Routan

Objective:
Weird people out. Also, decrease sales of Routan by 50%

Target:
Pregnant couples, ages 25-40

Insight:
German engineering is awesome. Everybody wants it. That's the number one thing people look for in automobiles -- "Was this made by Germans? Because the Japanese, Americans and Koreans all suck at making cars"

Mandatories:
Talking car, German accent, random 3-piece band, use slogan that translates to "The Car"

Brooke Shields: Don't be like Christine -- have a baby for love, not for German engineering.

How is this funny? Or informational? Or memorable, even? Here's a test -- watch this ad twice, then come back to this site in 3 days and see if you remember the name of the car. I bet you won't. What you will remember? Brooke Shields annoying you.

Brooke Shields: Learn what I'm doing to help -- at Routanboom.org

Hey, do you want to see about five more minutes of this same commercial? Then you should really check out RoutanBoom.org.

This car just launched -- a joint venture with Chrysler -- so no sales news yet. But with commercials like this one, you just have to wonder why companies continue to let Crispin Porter + Bogusky reshape their brands into creepy piles of shit.

SIDE NOTE: And by the way, here's an example of the way Volkswagen commercials used to be. Arnold Communications handled the account back then, before Crispin Porter could take a huge dump on it.

Anyone like this Pink Moon spot just a little bit more than the nonsensical zaniness of Brooke Shields railing against procreation?

Don't do what Donny Don't does

This commercial isn't that bad, really. But something about it just bugs me a little bit, and if you hadn't posted for two weeks and were having a hard time finding truly odious ads online, you'd start getting picky too.



One thing I don't like: it's a Volkswagen. The guy isn't driving an ice cream truck. People don't just stop and wave because you're driving around in a regular car. Also, does it really count as the Volkswagen "getting into" the car thief? Seems to me he was affected by things out of the Volkswagen's immediate control - the sun, people waving, etc. This could have been any convertible. And what if he'd driven through a rough neighborhood and gotten robbed at a street light? This commercial could have been so much more deliciously ironic.

The other thing I don't like: this ad is implying to Volkswagen owners that if they leave their car unlocked and the keys inside, it won't get stolen, because any car thief taking it will be overwhelmed by the good vibes and drive right on back. I would pay money if they would add one of those "Do not attempt" disclaimers under the woman as she returns to the car at the end of the ad. Or maybe one that reads "You got lucky this time, lady."

They're not all bad

I don't want to talk exclusively about bad commercials, so I do feel the need to throw in the occasional gem. The tough part about qualifying a commercial as "good" or "effective" is the fact that you have to notice it's good. Technically the best possible ad wouldn't be one where you'd think "Hey, good ad," rather, it would be one where you'd see it, and there wouldn't be time to think about how great the ad was because you'd already be driving to the store.

That said, sometimes the stars align and you get a commercial that you notice, love, and feel sold on something. In this case, it comes from the unlikeliest of places - automobile advertising:



Where's the corny exchange between husband and wife? Where's the full-throated announcer ready with clotted boilerplate about how anti-locking, all-wheel driving and streamlining this Cabrio is? How about the leasing info? And the indecipherable half-jokes, where did those go? This ad is stripped of the templated borefest that plagues the sad majority of car commercials. It's just arresting visuals, a beautiful soundtrack, and a simple, intuitive message ("Who wants to go to a party when driving in this car is so much fun?")

When this ad ran in 2000, everyone benefited. Young people were introduced to Nick Drake, Volkswagen saw its Cabrio product (now called Golf) continue to grow into the world's third best-selling car model, and automobile marketers got to see how it's done.

You don't hammer it home with slogans and taglines, you don't overwhelm with leasing information or yawn-inducing product attributes, and you don't make us cringe with hamfisted humor. You simply concentrate on one message, and you offer it in an engaging, artful way. Remember, marketers, we have brains - let us use them.