Theme: “Not every old lady is reliable. Fortunately, every Golf is.” The VW car is reliable, durable, and will transport you through any car adventure while still looking like new. The VW Golf is the right car choice for any new driver and parents can feel comfortable letting their child drive it.
Triune Brain:
The limbic brain is targeted in two ways in this commercial. The first way is through the song that plays targets our emotions as the consumer and gives us the feeling of “this is what we’ve been waiting for." The second way it targets our limbic brain is from the images we see throughout the commercial. Seeing the old woman's flashbacks or watching the father and son inspect the car, gives us a sense of nostalgia and we can empathize with the commercial.
The commercial also captures our neocortex or or "rational" thinking brain. At the very end of the commercial, we finally are exposed to some texts that explains the thesis of the commercial. It says "not every old lady is reliale, but fortunately, ever Golf is," as well as offering a deal at the end of the commercial "Now 3500 euro advantage on the VW Golf Tour." The text at the end helps target our neocortex and helps persuade us to buy the car. The Reptilian brain is also triggered for the "flight or flight" response or whether to buy the car or walk away. The father and son are looking at the car from an unknown seller and after a careful examination of the car and friendly smiles from the old lady, they decide to buy the car.
3 Shifts/Trends
Epistemological shift, the move from word to image, is apparent. This commercial relies on image to get the consumer to buy the product. The only words that appear in the commercial are at the end, where it explains the thesis of the commercial.
This commercial is an example of a technological shift. Car companies like VW can now use multiple technological platforms to advertise their product. This commercial first appeared on Dutch television a few years ago, now you can watch it on YouTube, copy, and share it. The internet has become a powerful advertising medium.
The commercial demonstrates an example of an aesthetic shift. Advertisers can put together various media forms in order to create a successful advertisement. This commercial includes multiple mediums of music, film, the written word, and symbols. Advertisements no longer rely on one medium to convey a message.
5 Facts
1. You can’t always trust who you buy a used car from, but you can trust the VW Golf.
2. The VW car is durable and can last through any driving adventure.
3. The VW Golf is fit for any driver, whether it’s an old lady or a new young driver.
4. The VW Golf is safe and reliable and it’s a car that parents can feel comfortable to let their kids drive in.
5. The VW Golf is fast car and can leave other cars in the dust.
3 Principles
This advertisement uses many production techniques. The director of the commercial used various camera angles. In the commercial the old woman had flashbacks and the camera would cut between her memories and what was happening in the present. The director would use sound, like an engine "vrooming" or tires squealing, and cut away from the music and transition from one scene to another. The commercial would also pan in and pan out and it was captivating to the eye.
Another principle used in the commercial was individual meaning. The VW Golf symbolized nostalgia for the old woman and we are exposed to a few great memories of her driving that car. It was almost like she didn’t want to let go of the car. For the young man, this car would be his first car and it symbolized something new and exciting.
The third principle I noticed was emotional transfer. This innocent-looking old lady is trying to sell this father-son pair her old car and as the viewer, but we keep seeing old flashbacks of the woman driving the car. She has a clear emotional tie with this vehicle and it's almost like she doesn't want to let it go, but we also see the eager young driver excited to buy his first car. In this short one minute advertisement, this commercial taps into our emotions of our own personal car experiences and we get this sense of nostalgia of either buying a car, or as a parent helping their child buy a car, and illustrates the bond we had with a car at one time.
5 persuasive techniques
This car advertisement uses humor. We don’t expect a little old lady to be such a dare devil on the road and each little flashback makes the viewer laugh, or when we see the dad perform these ridiculous tests on the car and his over exaggerated body language. We stop thinking when we laugh. The commercial doesn’t explain much about the car, but we want to go buy it because the commercial made us laugh.
The commercial uses nostalgia that comes from the old woman and her flashbacks. The advertisement reminds us of past relationships we have had with our cars and gives us the idea that the VW Golf is the car to make your next memories in.
This advertisement uses “warm fuzzies” to sell us the car, but instead of a cute furry animal, it’s a cute, innocent, little old lady.
This commercial uses diversion by targeting our emotions rather than selling us on the car itself. No real facts or statistics are presented about the car and we can only infer certain information about the car. We only know the model of the car is a VW, but we don't know the year it was made, the mileage, safety features, anything. We can only assume the durability of the car from the old woman's flashbacks.
The last persuasive techniques I noticed was at the very end of the commercial was bribery. For about five seconds, there is an offer of a 3500 euro advantage on a Golf Tour. This is the last thing the viewer is exposed to and gives the consumer the idea that they are saving money if they go purchase the car now.
3 SEPRITE Themes
Social Structures: The commercial attracts multiple buyers from the new driver to a more experienced old driver (the old woman selling the car). This commercial doesn’t just target one demographic and appeals to a wide audience. In this advertisement, the VW Golf doesn’t discriminate between age or sex. The social structures in this commercial remind me of the gender roles illustrated in "Carjacked." Although this ad plays on stereotypes of driver's like the old woman being a reckless driver and endangering people on the road or illustrating the father's mechanical knowledge on the car, the advertisement itself of who drives the car is free of any gender or age discrimination.
Ideology: The commercial illustrates the eagerness of new drivers (and even older drivers) and the freedom they get behind the wheel. In “Car Jacked,” the authors explored these themes of freedom and independence of teens and young adults when they get their licenses. Teens no longer have to rely on their parents for rides and they can become independent. They have the ability to just hop in a car and drive away, giving the driver a sense of power and autonomy. The car has become a rite of passage and we can see it in this commercial. Instead of a teen getting their license, the young man is buying what appears to be his first car.
Environment: Where the car is being purchased appears to be a nice suburban area and the car is being driven around town. As we've read in our books, most car commercials are filmed driving on the open road, coast highways, or in the wilderness to illustrate that sense of freedom on the road, but this car was filmed driving around town with other cars on the road. This car commercial targets a different use for the car, but the car still demonstrates that it can take a beating on the road.
Chapter 8:
ReplyDeleteCars: “During the 1920’s, as a result of prohibition, gambling (and with it drinking) was dispersed to the woodsy hinterlands of town—a move made possible by the rise of the automobile.” (p.133-134) The automobile took on a different meaning of freedom. It went beyond just driving on the open road, but was now a tool or a vice for organized crime. Car served as a mode of transportation to get you from one place to the next, but as a getaway vehicle, a place to do dirty business, or even a place for a gun duel. This relationship between gangs, gambling, alcohol, and cars are seen in all kinds of movies in our media and continue to be a popular theme.
Culture: “Meanwhile, everything possible had been done to accommodate automobiles at the expense of pedestrians, and of civic life in general.” (p.134-135) Kunstler talked about after the Oil Embargo of 1973, people limited the amount they drove and how they got from place to place, but in the 1980’s the oil shortages seemed like a thing of the past. New construction dominated the cityscapes and was centered on the automobile. I find it ironic that machines controlled by people were accommodated before themselves. Just goes to show how much power the automobile had on us and our culture.
Media: “Both are plain industrial boxes designed with no other purpose than to expedite sales of the products sold within. Both are painted in garish colors to snag the attention of passing motorists. (p.136) I’ve always found it interesting how places like McDonald’s attract us driver’s with such gaudy colors of red and yellow. To me, red and yellow are caution colors to stay away and do not seem very inviting and when you enter the restaurant the booths and chairs are uncomfortable. These chains definitely do not want you staying there long, but are successful in getting motorists to take time and buy their product. Fast food companies are really clever and it scares me how receptive we are, especially as drivers, to their ploys.
Chapter 9:
Cars: “The car, of course, is the other connection to the outside world, but to be precise it connects the inhabitants, to the inside of their car, not to the outside world per se.” (p.167) I liked this sentence from Kunstler, because I believe it’s absolutely true. We use are cars to transport us from one place to the next, getting us out of our homes and “connecting us with the outside world,” but in reality our cars restrict us. With all these fast food restaurants, the radio, and everything else, we still stay in our cars or our “little bubbles” and we aren’t really connecting to the outside world. We just move from one nutshell (our homes) and move to a new one (our cars.)
Culture: “Of course, if the public space is degraded by cars and their special needs—as it always is in America.” (p.168) Kunstler stresses this point how our culture has shaped itself to the automobile. I liked how he describes our public spaces as “degraded,” because I believe cars really have. I feel like there is no landscape left that hasn’t been built or altered by of cars.
Media: “As in television advertising, the lies have to be broad and simple because the intended audience is a passing motorist who will glance at the house for a few seconds.” (p.167) The advertising agencies knows who to target and how. Unfortunately, our family dynamics have been centered on the television and advertisers know how to get our attention and they are sneaky about it. Commercials not only target the family watching, but the motorist passing by the family’s house for a few seconds. I find it a little creepy and uncomfortable that drivers are looking into strangers houses rather than on the road, but alas shows me how effective the media really is.
Chapter 10:
ReplyDeleteCars: On page 183, Kunstler talks about how much it costs to own and operate a car for a year and how it is the equivalent of a year’s payment for a 30,000 dollar a year mortgage. He moves on to say that most families are multivehicle families and how it puts a lot of families in economic jeopardy. I still find it shocking that home ownership comes second to cars. I understand we need cars to transport us to our jobs, but there is public transportation for the most part, and I would think that having a roof over our family’s heads would be more important. I guess not…
Culture: “…when the failure to own a car is tantamount to a failure in citizenship and our present transportation system is as much of a monoculture as our way of housing or farming.” (p.179) Kunstler, like other authors we have read, brings up our cultural expectation that everyone should own a car or you are a failure in our society. I loved his metaphor of car ownership being a metaphor for a monoculture in farming or housing. There are so many modes of transportation: biking, walking, etc., but our culture has chosen the automobile as the “right” way to travel, as there are a various other crops we can plant in America or housing styles we can build. It’s crazy to think about. America is the country of options and the freedom to choose, whether it’s the car we drive, what house we live in, etc. We have so many options, but why do we only settle with one thing and get ridiculed if we choose to go outside what is deemed acceptable?
Media: “The garish internally lighted plastic signs tower above the town’s rooflines, and the mercury-vapor lamps in their parking lots cast an unearthly pinkish-green glow far beyond the edge of their properties.” (p.182) Corporations take advantage of the sides of buildings, parking lots, and street corners to market. They are constantly advertising and they target places visible to drivers and parking lots are a great place to advertise. I still don’t understand why corporations and businesses use these neon-lit colored signs to attract the public. Personally I find them to be an eyesore and a waste of energy to maintain. What is it about neon, plastic signs that gets us to want to enter a place of business? Are they really more effective than a simple billboard or non-illuminated sign?