What's the point of this Volkswagen Passat commercial?
Normally, car commercials feature a professional driver on a closed course showing off what the car can do. Occasionally, we get the commercial playing on emotions - I can't remember which car company did this, but it chronicled the reliability of the car from a guy's first date through bringing home a baby from the hospital. Fine. I get it. As long as there is a point.
We were asked to cover this particular VW commercial, presumably because it has no point. A father in a shirt and tie playing catch with his son, while the Passat sits in the driveway. Not moving. And the dad clearly can't throw, and neither can his son, and all we get out of it is that the car is more reliable than the throwing lesson going on and something the son might actually want passed down to him.
Okay, the car is reliable, but what features does it have? Good gas mileage? Heated seats? Corners like it's on rails? Give me something other than a bad game of catch, people.
The point of the commercial is to pass down "something" the son would be grateful for. However, who would be mad about a father handing down a used car? We have become a society that is used to teenagers driving with a new or semi-new car as soon as they have a piece of plastic in their hands. Where have the days gone that teenagers worked for their car? I am only 25 and I understand working for what you really want. I was never given a car. This commercial tries to give a message but its skewed at best. The way I take it is this, the dad is imitating the son in the long process towards a true throwing motion. This keeps the child interested because it is similar to what they are already doing. Therefore, the father can meticulously hone in the motions of a throw. OR,,,,I could be thinking way to much about a silly VW commercial. Just giving my opinion.
I like it.
The father is teaching his son to throw like a girl (obvious to me - I know, not PC). The message: Give your son something good to learn going into adulthood (the VW) since throwing like a girl is not a good thing.
It's a commercial. I try not to overthink these things.
Peace
I couldn't figure it out either. That's why I looked it up. I'M KIND OF WEARY OF FATHERS BEING PORTRAYED AS PATHETIC BUFFOONS.
I agree, this commercial is just terrible. So awful, in fact, that I wound up here because I wanted to see if anyone else felt the same way about it as I did. That's right, this commercial was so bad that I did a Google search for "awful 2013 Volkswagon Passat commercial". And here I am. It's such an ambiguous advertisement. At first, I thought, "Is the dad purposefully throwing poorly so that his son with throw the ball back poorly and therefore not hit the car?". That then led me to think, "Why the hell don't the dad and son switch positions so the son faces the bushes and the dad faces the car? That way he can control where he throws it and therefore his car will NOT be hit." Then I just thought, "Why would anyone throw anything other than a spongy Nerf ball around a brand new car?". Too many [dumb] questions to ask yourself when watching a commercial that's supposed to be getting you to buy their product! So much for trying to sell the car, I spent all of the 30 seconds figuring out everything that this father and son duo were doing wrong and why they were doing it. The only thing they didn't show was the son's final throw that landed through the passenger side windshield which subsequently resulted in dad screaming and nearly beating his ass, ruining their afternoon in the front yard... all of which could have been prevented if dad either A) Decided to play ball in the back yard, B) Decided to park his car in the street or in the garage, or C) Switched places with his son so that Dad could control the velocity at which the baseball got thrown towards the car. I have spent WAY too much time thinking about this commercial and everything wrong with it. Volkswagen, you have failed.
@Todd_B haha I totally agree with you (Well maybe excluding the latter part of your comment). I want to like VW, but this commercial just made me scratch my head and rack my brain of the possibilities of what was going on. I am an ivy league college graduate who could not figure out the message... i too thought he was trying to teach his son to throw poorly on purpose so as not to damage the car? and had a few other related theories. now that i've looked it up i guess it makes sense that he was just actually a terrible thrower and was ignorant of that- as a stringent commercial critic, i should not have had to look that up to figure out! it seems absurd to be that bad of a thrower.
Personally I do not agree with you at all, I really enjoyed this commercial. The over exaggerated game of catch between the father and son was meant to be comical, but it seems as though you missed that. It made me laugh, it conveyed the image that this car is reliable and fit for a family, and most importantly I remembered the company who paid big bucks to produce the thing. Everyone has seen a stunt driver speed through turns on Mulholland, and while that is fine for a Jaguar the VW Passat is not often purchased by your average speed demon. So why would they throw a stunt driver behind the wheel of this car? This commercial thinks outside of the box. Maybe it doesn't deserve an A+, and yes they missed opportunities to showcase other aspects of the car, but clearly you think inside the box if you're asking what the point of the commercial is.
