These car ads be trippin', yo

Unless I miss my guess, these new Volkswagen ads must be aimed at that subset of car buyer who wishes he could afford a real hot rod, but can't. So, instead of jonesing for a more expensive 'ride', he goes out and gets an older Honda Civic or other small car and "tricks it out" with chrome, bells and whistles. Enter Volkswagen to bring these guys back to reality... and to hook them up with a car they can afford.

Here we have an unnamed character, a "tryin' so hard to be hip" German car engineer who's attempting to be "down" with his target audience. He introduces us to several bling-wearing young men with their laughable custom rollerskates and offers to "unpimp zhere autos". With the push of a button, each car is demolished in a rather ostentatious way, and replaced with a nice, clean looking Vee-Dub. As the kid moves in to inspect his new and improved "hoopdy", our German engineer uses a comical hand sign to "represent" Volkswagen and the tagline, "German engineering in zhe Haus, ja!"

I like these spots. They speak directly at the audience, and probably go right over the head of people for whom they weren't intended. They don't show much of the car, but actually, at least half of car spots these days don't bore us with interior shots and 'donut skid' footage. Best of all, you remember which automaker's cars are supposed to be the star of the show. That can't be said for all of them...

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As a contrast to these effective spots, here's another one that's kinda funny and entertaining, but not in the same league as Volkswagen.

In this spot, we see "Tinkerbelle with an attitude", flying over a Metropolis waving her magic wand. In a shower of pixie dust, every object she zaps becomes "cuted". A skyscraper takes on the properties of a Disney castle. A subway train engine turns green and cartoonish. And then our little faerie turns her attention to a sleek black vehicle that comes out of a city tunnel. She zaps the vehicle...nothing happens. She swoops in for another pass...the "cute ray" just bounces off. Finally, a third attempt ricochets the cute dust back into her, and hurls her into a wall, defeated, as the "too cool" auto drives off none the worse for wear.

Then, here's where the spot goes bad. There's this rough looking guy who points and laughs and totally butchers his line, "Silly little faerie!" She zaps him and turns him and his dog into '80s era yuppies, complete with tennis suit and Izod sweater tied around his neck. But the guy even blows the "Aughhhh!" line. Worst bit of acting in a commercial this young century.

But, even though the spot is charming and visually interesting (despite the one hack actor), I can't remember the name of the vehicle, and I barely remember that it's a Dodge. And I've seen the spot dozens of times already. That's not good if the idea is to get me to show up at the right showroom for a test drive.

(Oh, and I'm not even going to get into whether there are homophobic overtones to this spot; Bob Garfield of Ad Age is offbase on that...I mean, the character IS a faerie, and the line is not spoken as if it were a perjorative)