TV commercials can now be so damned clever, so thoroughly over-produced that you lose the message and the product to the dazzle. You might get the joke, but you could see the spot 20 times and still not know if it’s for a chain store or chain saw.
But every once in a while . . .
Volkswagen recently introduced a 30-second number for its Passat, an ad that hits all the right notes while leaving a marvelous message about the car — and all that matters above and beyond.
Two young men, perhaps 20, are seen on a roadside, at night, inspecting the damage to the rear end of the Passat one of them apparently was driving. Obviously, they’d just been in an accident. One says to the other, “My dad’s gonna kill me, dude.”
Then the following appears, unspoken, on the screen: “He can only kill you . . .”
Then a brief pause in the display, and then, “. . . if you’re okay.”
And that remains on the screen, “He can only kill you if you’re okay.”
And so everything that counts — everything that commercial makers avoid as a matter of being “edgy” and “thinking outside the box” and “pushing the envelope” — is restored in an ad that reminds us that modern marketing creativity and strong — you should excuse the expression — family values are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Nice job, Volkswagen: A TV ad that’s not embarrassed to be both hip and square. Of the Passat, the message is left that those who “get it” might look into getting it.
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The Coarsening of America, Continued: So on Channel 11, last Sunday afternoon, the Mets played the Yankees, thus Channel 11 produced its own pregame show.
And among all the fans entering Yankee Stadium, Channel 11 chose to interview a woman, obviously a Mets fan, wearing a T-shirt that carried a vulgar, wise-guy message about the Yanks, the kind of T-shirt that no right-headed adult would wear, let alone purchase.
And one was left to wonder whether Channel 11 chose to present this woman to its audience on a Sunday afternoon before a ballgame in spite of what she was wearing or because of what she was wearing.
Also, last week, NBC, at 6:30 p.m., ran a commercial for an animated Disney movie — an animated Disney movie rated PG, for crying out loud — and chosen for inclusion was one character’s putdown of another’s inabilities as a race-car driver.
Borrowing from the driving legend Mario Andretti, the character hollers that the other character should be named “Suck-o Andretti.” Not funny, but vulgar and inappropriate, thus deemed essential.
On a recent Saturday morning, WABC Radio carried an ambush ad for a marketing operation during which the narrator shouted, “Does your marketing suck?”
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One reason the History Channel was unable to provide World War II programming June 6 — the anniversary of the 1944 D-Day invasion of France — was that it was the same day as its season debut of “Cajun Pawn Stars.”
As for the Biography Channel, it was so loaded with bios of sitcom stars, movie actors, rock and rap stars and assorted Sheens, Baldwins and Kardashians, that there was no room to pay attention to any others on Memorial Day.
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Ya know that 60ish, gray-bearded, Spanish-accented fellow, the one surrounded by beautiful women, global dignitaries and high intrigue in those Dos Equis beer commercials, those in which this character is identified as “the most interesting man in the world”?
His real name is Jonathan Goldsmith. He’s 73, a native New Yorker. His father was the track coach at James Monroe High School in The Bronx.