I tend not to watch much TV, but last weekend, when high winds in Utah forced me off the slopes, I found myself browsing through the cable TV channels when the parallel parking ad for the Audi A4 caught my eye. Simple but amusing, it was clearly a direct appeal to the psyche of the potential Audi driver - and it seems I am not alone in believing there is a lot more to the ad than a great stunt.

For those of you who, like me, saw the ad late in its life and are too time-pressed to watch it now, the ad simply shows an A4 executing a fast handbrake turn into a curbside parking space between two other cars, neatly filling a gap little longer than the car itself. The screen then reads, “The luxury car for people who can park themselves.”

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will have realized that I am a bit of an Audi aficionado. In spite of the best efforts of dealers in three states to annoy me with their arrogance and incompetence, the Audi driving experience keeps me coming back for more. Two Audis sit outside: the rather gaudy S4 and the TT convertible. So the A4 ad was guaranteed to appeal to me, simply based on the stunt alone but it is also an interesting marketing tactic.

The A4 ad is obviously taking a swipe at the Lexus LS 460. This flagship in the Lexus range comes with the optional Advanced Parking Guidance System which automatically parallel parks the car at the touch of an icon on the in-dash display.

To my mind, it is pretty amazing piece of technology, but a sad comment on people’s driving ability. And why did they decide to focus on a parking system? Since most drivers have clearly forgotten what their turn signals are for, an even better use of technology would be a mind-reading system that activates the indicator lights when a driver thinks about turning the steering wheel.

Of course, that comment reflects the sort of mentality to which the Audi ad is designed to appeal. I don’t need an automated system to help me park my car. (OK, I may be a little rusty on that parallel parking thing, but if you think I am going to admit defeat and have the car do it for me, forget it.) But is there more to it than a fun piece of film that appeals to the Audi driver’s ego?

Of course there is. While the Audi Q7 features an video camera built into the tailgate to help people park this bus - yes, there is an Audi I don’t like - Audi does not actually have a system that parks the car for you, and it would take time and a ton of money to develop one. The A4 ad is an inspired piece of advertising because it turns the potential positive of the Lexus into a negative. As Grant McCracken comments, “It cancels the technological lead of a competitor… [in] a cunning act of symbolic piracy.” (Click here to read his post.)

I agree with McCracken that the A4 ad is a great piece of work. The creators understand the psyche of Audi drivers and have used it to overcome what might otherwise be perceived as a negative. But, of course, in the world of advertising, little is truly new. As Stig Richards points out in a reply to Grant’s post, the parallel parking trick has been used before, in an ad for the UK’s Montego 1.6L in the 80s.

Great ideas never die, it seems, they just get re-interpreted.

So can you think of other ads that have managed to distract attention from a potential deficit and reinforce existing customer beliefs? If so please share them with us.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 29th, 2008 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Brands, Creative. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print this Page