As Television advertising begins to deal with the pardigm shift caused by DVR (Tivo) technology, advertisers are getting a little more creative. Concepts like ad synergies between TV ads and website ads, and entire campaigns focused on the web (using TV ads as a way to drive traffic to the ad campaign online) were once considered edgy and avant garde. Not any more. Getting traction today is even more difficult than it was in the pre-Internet age.

Volkswagen is trying to get some traction and rise above the noise with their new ad campaign for the Volkswagen Routan – which is (believe it or not) a re-badged Chrysler Town and Country. (!) So I would suppose it’s oddly appropriate that Volkswagen has chosen to take an American actress/spokesmodel Brooke Shields and re-badge her as a social activist. 

Now, I’m a huge fan of using humor in ads. However, the humor in the Routan ads strikes me as a one-note joke that isn’t really funny enough to base an entire campaign on. The ads aren’t bad – they just don’t grab me. In a way, that’s somewhat parallel to how I take the Routan. Why buy a Volkswagen version of a Chrysler minivan, especially when you don’t get the Stow ‘N Go seats that fold down into the floor when you don’t need them? Of course, the VeeDub version is more expensive, and has a few, token German styling cues, but it’s painfully obvious that the Routan is as German as…as…Budweiser. No matter how clever, how cutting-edge, or how “too hip for the room” an ad campaign is, it won’t save a me-too product that has no compelling reason to exist.

This ad is well-produced. Sheilds does a good job playing it straight. But the concept leaves me thinking, “who are they going after, here?” Maybe I’m missing something, but this has all the earmarks of a concept that wasn’t anybody’s idea of ‘great,’ but more like a desperation play for a product with no real reason to exist.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 7:44 pm and is filed under advertising, marketing.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.