I've commented (complained?) here on the past before about Toyotathon Hondadays Chevypalooza advertisements. It just seems to be obnoxiously ever present, and I'm not even a little bit convinced it positively influences sales.
The new Volkswagen ads take this to a bizarre extra level of uselessness and general suckitude, though.
At first glance, the theme would certainly seem to be "People who are test driving our car at the dealership mistakenly think it's a car they own!! Hah!"
After you've seen the series a couple of hundred times, you may get what they're actually meaning to say... something about how the car is so easy to get initially in terms of down payments, they, umm, need to remind you that... you need to buy the car first then take it.
Regardless of what the subject is, I submit that I don't think the widely placed and regularly repeating TV spots will sell a single VW that wasn't highly likely to sell anyway.
That's the argument with these (mildly) humorous TV spots. You'll occasionally hear "Well hey they got you talking about it, didn't they? And isn't that the point?"
NO. It costs millions of dollars to create, cut and distribute these ads. VW is no happier that I'm here ranting into the ether over it. Advertising should move product.
I'm probably bitter, or at least biased, because advertising budgets are usually substantially larger than PR budgets. And this always seemed askew to me.
Let's say you see 15 tv ads with a singing cartoon chicken in a Chevy... then read an article where a journalist looks at and independently examines the benefits of a new Ford model in detail... which is more likely to loosen your ol' purse strings?
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