Late last year Volkswagen UK released a new ad (shown above) to promote the upcoming Golf VI. Called The Fight, the ad features a tagline “sometimes the only one you have to beat is yourself”. The tag is supported by a cinematic fight scene, with the lead character fighting against clones of himself inside a Volkswagen factory and is reminiscent of The Matrix and other action films.
As an television commercial it is catchy, well made and makes a clever connection to the Golf sitting at the top of its class. However, in the real world, people are complaining that the ad encourages children to fight. No, this isn’t a joke. According to an article on guardian.co.uk 115 complaints have been sent in to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA will have to decide if the ad promotes excessive violence that could be copied by children.
In terms of “excessive violence” the ad is pretty tame, and, at worst, you could only imagine the ASA would rule that the ad can only be shown after the UK’s 9pm watershed. By which time little Johnny and Jane have no doubt seen worse “violence” in regular programming in any case. One thing is certain, ad agency DDB London and Volkswagen UK are no doubt loving the extra publicity.
Source: guardian.co.uk (Thanks to Mav for the tip.)