Friday, May 09, 2008

I HATE HATE this Beetle ad.

(click ad for closer look)
First off, I love the (old) Beetle. I drove a Beetle in college. It went 0-60 in never because it only went 55, and it took three minutes to accelerate to that door-shaking speed. But it never failed me. I'm not as crazy about the new Beetle, but a co-worker owns one and he says it's a fine car (it is ridiculously overpriced, though).
This Beetle ad via DDB Barcelona is a classroom example of tired borrowed interest. And it badly borrows from an already grossly abused iconic image. In the classic 1955 film noir Night of the Hunter, Robert Mitchum, playing one of foulest characters in movie history, had LOVE tattooed on one set of knuckles and HATE on the other. And for the next 10+ years, pretty much every faux badass teen in America replicated the tattoos with a black marker (Actually, it's still going on today, except the goofy goth teens have no idea where the idea came from.). Even my dad, who was/is a real badass, did it. Anyway, to wrap this meandering up: though I like the lack of a product shot, the ad's trying too hard to be cool. It fails. related: Peter Stormare stars in funny VW GTI spots.

3 Comments:

Blogger sal said...

What I do like, and it took me a minute to see it because I'm slow, is the positioning of the hands to seem like they are gripping a steering wheel the only way you could have gripped a Beetle wheel. Tightly and with all your life.

1:31 PM  
Blogger copyranter said...

I noticed that also, but it is only a slightly mitigating factor.

1:33 PM  
Blogger Laura V said...

It is always a relief to me when someone else out on the tubes knows _Night of the Hunter_.

9:57 AM  

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