Arse Poetica draws attention to this NYT article: “VW’s Quirky Campaign to Revive U.S. Sales” which states in pertinent part:
“…The Volkswagen campaign…introduces a new slogan, “Make friends with your fast,” along with a brand icon called the “fast,” a gremlinesque character that issues commands to Volkswagen drivers in a deep, robotic voice. …
“The target audience for the GTI is undeniably male: Volkswagen chose to unveil the new campaign on Thursday by holding a news conference at the office of Playboy magazine in New York. Print ads for the GTI are scheduled to run in magazines like Maxim, Spin, ESPN, Wired and Autoweek.
“Beyond the leggy German-accented Helga in a skintight dress, the other women in the ads are typically portrayed as nagging girlfriends who interfere with the male drivers and their “fasts.”
“In one television commercial that is running during the Olympics, a female passenger asks the male driver, presumably her boyfriend, to roll up the windows because her hair is getting tangled by the wind.
“He responds by saying, “Sweetie, it’s really hard for me to enjoy the sound of the engine with all that yakking.”
“Another commercial depicts a man refusing to let his girlfriend enter his car because he does not want to “carry the extra weight.”
“It is a point that is not lost on Alex Bogusky, the chief creative officer for Crispin, who said he considered the car and its driving experience masculine.
“There are obviously women who will buy the GTI,” he said Thursday, but the main emphasis of the ads was the car’s performance. …”
Arse Poetica’s wonderful response was as follows:
To: Crispin Porter & Bogusky
Re: New VW Ad Campaign
Dear Sirs,
Your new ad campaign is so shockingly immature and misanthropic that I felt compelled to check a calendar. Has the creativity so dried up at Crispin Glover Whoziwhatsit that you had to go the take-my-wife-please route? While I applaud your doing your part to hire the elderly, maybe it’s time you hired staff less enamored of Henny Youngman’s gender politics, and, in the interest of half of the humans on the planet, hightailed it to join us in the 21st century.
As it does not seem that your market analysis registered anyone in the “actualized human being” category, might I give you some free advice: a whiny, self-absorbed, toy-focussed adolescent carping about his girlfriend is unattractive. And “unattractive,” last I checked, did not rank high on the hit list of desirable traits in product promotion. Please reconsider your advertising strategy.
I hope you’ll come to your senses, or, failing that, come to mine.
Newly embarrassed to be driving a VW,
I remain,
Anti-patriarchally yours,
ae
Update: See also Echidne of the Snakes on “Volkswagen – The Sexist Car”
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