This is not how advertising is supposed to work. The TV advert for Smart Car's fortwo is not supposed to make me want to avoid Smart Cars at all costs.
Adverts (commercials, whatever you chose to call them) are supposed to make me want to spend money on the product in question. This one really doesn't. The message I'm getting: the new fortwo is incredibly destructive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjOvwG2SA9o
The Smart Car fortwo is driven around an impossibly empty city at night, and leaves carnage in its wake. Somehow, through its admittedly cool music player, the fortwo manipulates power lines and makes office lights turn on and off. Not eco-friendly.
While making a vending machine spew out cans (in effect stealing from the manufacturer), the fortwo also wreaks havoc with the traffic lights...good job there's only this one guy on the roads, eh?
It's also lucky that this is happening at night, because in the day this car would be a death trap.
At the same time as switching office lights on and off, the passing fortwo also switches computers on and off. I hope they're set to autosave pretty frequently, because random power fluctuations could become frequent if this ad campaign takes off.
It disrupts everything - including a bloke in the bath, which is just rude, frankly - and causes untold damage. Somehow, the fortwo also manages to set off a load of fire extinguishers. Would someone like to explain that one?
Then, the best bit by far - or worse bit if you happen to be, er, human...which accounts for most of Smart Car's target market - the windows. Every piece of glass anywhere near the fortwo shatters, and you might notice the fine spray of glass (or fine spray of death, as I like to call it) that suddenly descends to ground level. Ground level, in case car designers weren't aware, is where pedestrians walk. Apparently, it's okay to cover this in glass shards, which is what will happen every time someone drives past in a fortwo. Oh good.
Don't worry though folks, it's okay. When he locks the fortwo, everything gets fixed. It's a miracle. Everything is put back exactly how it was.
It's basically a deluxe, suped-up version of the Nissan Juke (watch especially for the electric robots), seen below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSOgGhZL9t4
The difference here is that the Nissan Juke doesn't absolutely destroy everything (what's with the washing machines?). It seems to make electricity work in its immediate vicinity, which might be useful, but that's about it. Oh, and it exposes a diamond thief. While the effects are destructive when it parks, they are at least localised - it's only that sign that goes crazy, and we're talking a small-scale fireworks display rather than an entire commercial sector needing to be put back together.
Still, not sure I fancy driving a Nissan Juke either.
But the Smart Car fortwo advert raises all sorts of questions in my mind. For a start, when they construct these catastrophic killing-machines, how do the factories cope? At some point during construction, the fortwo's killer instinct must kick in. Why don't the factories get smashed to bits? How many Smart Car staff die every month when the factory gets ripped to shreds and then needs putting back together? Does the line manager give a slightly cute, slightly guilty blue-eyed glance at the bodies, and coyly lock the car, magically replacing the factory walls...but not his staff?
Worse, if several people buy these destruct-o-cars, what happens if two of them meet? I don't just mean in a crash, I mean passing in the same city? Not even the same street; let's face it, the fortwo in the advert does untold damage in streets it's not even in (unlike the relatively sober Nissan Juke). If a fortwo meets another fortwo coming the other way, what happens? Does the universe implode? Do we get a new Big Bang? Think how much money and time CERN could have saved if they just crashed two fortwos into each other, rather than building a Large Hadron Collider.
Actually, let's not let this happen. Everyone must avoid the Smart Car fortwo - this may be the secret message coming from their marketing campaign. Someone in Smart Car marketing knows how potentially destructive the fortwo is, and wants us to know so that we don't buy it. Someone high up at Smart Car is planning to destroy the universe. Don't let them.
This advert, on the other hand...yes, yes and yes again. Simple, effective - it makes me want to buy the product, and no one gets hurt.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQzc2hRAjcc
With thanks to Keira Walker.
The problem with Smart Cars, though, is that car buyers have an obsession with being noticed, and with the car being an extension of themselves. What does having a tiny but efficient car say about you? It says you're a little bit like Robin is to Batman, or Tails is to Sonic. It's a plucky sidekick's car.
ReplyDeleteSo what does this advert show? A rugged yet cosmopolitan bachelor cruises around a city where it is impossible not to notice him. The power of the car is almost godlike in its scope, disturbing people all over the city - and it's important who these people are. An older man. A businessman. A working man. All men. This is a broad representation of the pack that the Smart Car is attempting to sell you the ability to become the Alpha Male of.
In the same way men get a heady rush of power when they shout obscenities at pedestrians from their car, this man is powerful, domineering and comfortably masculine in his intrusion into other men's lives. He's not just fucking with them - he's fucking them. One guy is naked in a bath during the intrusion. Another gets spunked on by fire extinguishers. What he's doing is like 2/10 on the scale of 0-rape. He's entering into their space in a way they are powerless to resist and making them subservient to himself.
But I don't use the term godlike lightly - there is a godlike element to the advert and not just in the Smart Car's apparent destruction. Just as the good lord giveth, the good lord taketh away. At the advert's conclusion everything goes back to normal, a further display of power. The advert is basically all about fulfilling male power fantasy.
The Smart Car is a sidekick's car? Yes, yes, yes. Personally I've always thought there was something insufferably smug about the Smart Car - "Ooh, look at me, I can park at angles other cars can only dream of!" - and this one is self-confidently godlike.
ReplyDelete"Ooh, look at me, I can cause untold damage...and fix it again! Nissan Juke? Pfft" It's the little David/sidekick car defeating the Goliath/proper car. It's even got a more pumped-up soundtrack, with more powerful effects on the city, DESPITE being smaller. In you face, Nissan.