Audi and Volvo comercial commentary

[Daniel Hussey <GY3WSX%UNIVSCVM.BITNET@VTBIT.CC.VT.EDU>]

      I saw a great Audi ad this weekend, and a horrible, not to mention extrem
ely long oloV commercial.

      The Audi Commercial:  Featured the new A4.  It had a guy who was driving
his A4 to work....and said things like, "Bob loves his new A4...including such
and such features (paraphrasing here).  In fact he'd love to sell you one, but
not while he's at work."  Then you see the A4 parking in front of a BMW dealer
and the guy get out and start walking in.  I saw another good one about a week
ago with the "Get ready for the ride of your life" theme, also featuring the A4
.  I think part of Audis problem was their lack of advertising for many years..
.I think this exposure will help thier image and boost thier sales.

      The Volvo Commercail:  This had to be one of the worst ads s I've ever se
en, and the only reason why I watched the entire thing was because me and a fri
end were laughing at it's stupidity.  This commercial, honest to god, had a run
ning time of around 5 minutes. It felt like 10 minutes though.  I hope someone
else saw it and will vouch for me that it really was this long.

      This commercial featured the entire Volvo (box-like) line.  The commercia
l was divided up into segments....each a different time of the day, in a differ
ent place, with different people, and a different model Volvo.  The first one s
howed a couple driving to Las Vegas where they get married in thier oloV.  The
next segment featured a lady driving through some mountians with her father in
the car while he reads a story to her (this was supposed to be the emotional on
e), another featured some guy trying to find a parking space in Washington D.C.
, another featured a mom and her kids, another had some guys comming back from
basket ball practice and one of them broke his leg or something.  The last segm
ent was the stupidest....it had a buch of clowns driving around in a new Volvo
and rushing because they're late for wherever they're going....and it's just re
ally stupid....just take my word on it if you haven't seen it.  At the end they
told their theme: "How does a Volvo fit into your life?"  Well, in my case...it
doesn't, and I'd like to keep it that way!

        You may have seen one of these segments before, because they run them s
eperately also, but I saw this one with all of them together.  All I could thin
k of was how much money Volvo spent on that 5 minute commercial, and how they s
aid absolutely nothing about thier product and what it would do for me in those
 5 minutes.  I think Volvo needs to change ad agencys...fast!  They also need a
serious campaighn change.  This just restated the "nerd" image I give Volvos, a
nd thier owners.  (I know I'm gonna get some flames on this one....sorry)  But,
I thought Volvo was trying to change thier image....to try an be more performan
ce oriented and compete with Audi and BMW.  I guess they just couldn't hold thi
er own.  I just have one word to describe Volvo's new ad campaighn, cheezy!

        I also saw a good BMW commercial this weekend.  It first showed a nice
suburban house with a BMW 3.0CSi parked in the driveway.  It is at night and th
ere is a storm.  Lightning strikes a tree and the tree falls on the BMW and cru
shes it.  (I've actually seen this happen to a nieghbors 325...not pretty.)  Th
en we see the spirit of this car rise up and vanish into the clouds.  Then we s
ee a shot of the new BMW 7-series car....and the spirit of the 3.0 goes into th
e new BMW.  Then we hear a voice give the theme of the commercial:  "The new 7-
series...a luxury car with the soul of a BMW."  This was a gret commercial and
creatively went straight to the point.

                                                       Later,
                                                        Dan