If you've seen the TV commercials for the Volkswagen Routan, the ones featuring a perfectly cast, perfectly straight-faced Brooke Shields lamenting the growing social problem of women having babies just for German engineering, then you know that it's a beautifully executed satire. You know that she's not suggesting that women are
really doing this, any more than Jonathan Swift was really suggesting that the Irish should eat their own babies.
I swear, though, the more I see this ad (and the
longer, documentary-style video on the Volkswagen website), the more I start thinking, well, gee, maybe I should...
Good grief!
I shake my head and remind myself that I've
always owned a Volkswagen. I grew up with German engineering. Heck, even my toaster is German! I do
not need to have a baby with a strange man I barely know!
But my reaction speaks to the brilliance of Crispin Porter + Bogusky. How they hit exactly the right nerve in the target market. How their impeccable casting of Shields nails audience resonance as it was meant to be in a perfect advertising world.
