Autosuggestion
MyFast? my bad. Back just before and during the Olympics Volkswagen was running a somewhat funny, but also creepy set of commercials featuring the suggestion-offering MyFast and its ominous hum. The campaign seems to be over, I haven't seen one of those commercials in a couple of weeks. But I had lingering questions about the whole thing, which were helpfully partly answered by this Slate piece
Fast Times
VW's nasty new spokesdemon. The piece indicates that some Volkswagen dealerships will throw in an actual black plastic beastie if you buy a car. It would be an oversight on someone's part if not. Seth Stevenson's article also confirms that it is the same ad agency that did the Burger king ads Crispin Porter + Bogusky. I suspected this at the time. I felt that feeling; like invisible fingers were all over me trying to find buttons to push. Socrates, scourge of Piraeus, had an helpful earnest Daemon that spoke to him to tell him not make mistakes. This little Kakodaemon seems to have its own presence. Yet refers to itself in a third person voice speaking its own point of view, but encompassing elements in the challenged protagonist's life. Like a malevolent id that has managed to slip beyond the bounds of the target it is painting on you. "Make Friends With Your Fast" was the name of the campaign. They always start by just asking to drive a little fast. After that, fastening your seat-belt won't help. Now Volkswagen is trying to get you to unpimp your rides. Of course, any ad that has a trebuchet slamming a car into the ground can't be all bad, but caricatures of Germans abusing cultural notions drawn from American ethnic pop culture. What is it that feeds on that? These campaigns are not in the same league as the Pink Moon ad, or even the recent Kings of Leon Molly's Chambers spot. Kings of Leon also do a song called Taper Jean Girl, there is not a car for that. After having written most of the above, while changing channels, as I flipped over Univision, I saw what appeared to be Speedy Gonzales also hawking Volkswagens.
Speedy Gonzales to pitch Volkswagen to Hispanic customers - Autoblog. I note this set of ads is done by a different ad agency: CreativeOndemanD
Adrants » Hispanic VW GTI Mk V Commercials Star Speedy Gonzales". There are three speedy Gonzales spots (1) "Cats" - moon over miami as I call it (2) "Speed Bump" (3) "stealing cheese" - the one I saw. These can be seen on
The German Car Blog: VW: The new Speedy Gonzalez commercials are here! Or you could just watch Univision.
[ As an aside the new United Church of Christ (UCC, this is my church) spot is on the right-hand sidebar of the Adrants site page. Care of its
Accessible Airwaves nom d'fatima.] Volkswagen: going after customers the way Dick Cheney goes after quail. In fairness, I'm not in the demographic groups any of these campaigns are targeting. Even beyond that: I don't drive, I never even learned. I am not in any car demographic at all . I'm ambivalent on the concept of vehicles. ...That being said: Huyen-Tran - if you drive, dinner is on me.
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