This is the TV spot where some guy in business attire sits at a stoplight in a metropolitan area and plays air drums to the song: "Fly By Night" by Rush in his car. Then the guy is seen and laughed at by pedestrians crossing the street in front of him, and the announcer says: "Careful, you're no longer invisible in a midsize sedan. The Volkswagen Passat: The 2012 Motor Trend Car of the Year. That's the power of German engineering!"
So let me get this straight: It's this powerful German engineering that enables this guy to get noticed and ridiculed for playing air drums, right? Wow, that's some powerful engineering, that is. That would never happen in a Japanese car! And despite the auto bailouts, Detroit still hasn't managed to engineer a car that will get you picked-on and teased for embarrassing behavior like a German car does! And that's the power of German engineering! (Actually, I would have been more impressed if the pedestrians had been far more insulting, and the Passat driver had gunned the car and run them all over. Then they could have said: "The ability to chase down and crush those who malign and oppose you: That's the power of German engineering!" Or would that have reminded people of something else, perhaps?)
The problem with this ad for me is quite simply that there is a real disconnect between the scenario we see in the commercial and the slogan we hear at the end. They just don't work well together. See what I mean here? How about instead saying something more like: "The Volkswagen Passat: Careful, a car like this is bound to get you noticed! Motor Trend noticed it too when they made it their 2012 Car of the Year!" And just leave the "That's the power of German engineering" out of it for this one ad, because it just doesn't really fit when you're talking about someone getting busted and teased for playing air drums. (And in any case, isn't showing this scenario a reason to not want to buy this car? Haven't owners lodged constant complaints about how owning this car makes everyone ultra-critical of their every action? Maybe cheating spouses are getting caught with their lovers, criminals are getting identified by the cops and the public, people in witness protection are being recognized and rubbed out, etc., and all because this car is so brilliantly engineered that everyone immediately notices the car and its occupants. And if so, then wow, that really is some powerful engineering, because I didn't know it was even possible to do something like that!)
Here's the fly-by-night car commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V57v_UlaZP0
Hey, maybe for the next TV spot in this campaign, they can show some novice actress getting noticed in her VW Passat picking her nose and eating it, and it could get filmed on iPhones and posted to YouTube, making her an instant blooper celebrity. Sound good? It certainly would effectively communicate the idea of the Passat getting its drivers noticed. (<Especially when they are doing embarrassing things they wouldn't want others to see.)
