Posted on 02/15/2010 4:53:08 AM PST by Kaslin
The new Audi TDI ad was one of the more provocative commercials shown during the Super Bowl.
The commercial opens with an unsuspecting grocery shopper asking for a plastic shopping bag rather than paper. He is immediately taken into custody by the “Green Police.” As his head is being slammed into the check-out counter the green officer barks, “You picked the wrong day to mess with the eco-system plastic boy!” The spot ends with a long line of cars stopped at an “Eco-check point.” An officer spots the Audi. “TDI here,” he observes. “Clean diesel.” The officer then nods to the driver, “you’re good to go sir.” The driver smiles and then speeds past the traffic jam. The tag line reads: “Green has never felt so good.”
More fascinating than the commercial is the fact that certain environmental Cassandras claim the commercial speaks for them. David Roberts, for instance, writing in the Huffington Post, argues that “the ad only makes sense if it is aimed at people that acknowledge the moral authority of the green police.” Indeed the driver never challenges the moral authority of the green police. To the contrary, the Audi driver is actually subordinate to that authority. The driver is only able to by-pass the eco check point because his car passes muster. The message of the commercial is that it is possible to be both stylish and eco friendly.
My question to those “that acknowledge the moral authority of the green police”: from where does that authority come? The question is rarely asked by the likes of Roberts because they don’t like the answer.
There are certain universal, objective and immutable truths to which all men are bound. These truths do not come to us through law, statutes or even science, but are instead the gift of divine revelation. It is in order to protect these truths that societies create institutions. The lengths through which our institutions go in conserving and furthering these truths can only be discovered through a process of rational and prudent deliberation. Science is but one of those processes.
We recognize for instance and all of society generally agrees that it is a good thing to arrest, prosecute and fine (or imprison) those that dump poisons into our waters and public lands (not specifically designated for such dumping). The commercial resonates because we tend to blanch at the idea of green police marching fathers from their homes for using incandescent light bulbs (the disposal of which, by the way, does not require that one open windows and don a hazmat suit). The left argues the moral authority for such “eco tactics” stems from the fact that curbing our production of man-made carbon will save the planet. Unfortunately, while the evidence of the dangers of poisons in our landfills is quite clear, the evidence that man-made carbon is causing the earth to warm – er uhm I mean the climate to change – grows less and less persuasive.
Far from recognizing the moral authority of the green police, as outrageous fantasy creeps ever closer to being a reality -- (Note to Audi: it stops being satire when it is true)--the commercial perceives the opposite.
Consider that the British parliament is already considering something called, “Domestic tradable quotas” or personal energy rationing. Here’s how it would work: every resident would receive a carbon credit card containing an identical allocation of carbon units. The number of points would be reduced each year in line with the government’s carbon reduction goals. Each time a resident used carbon based energy he/she would have to swipe his card and have a number of DTQ points deducted from their card. Heavy DTQ users would be able to purchase extra points from low DTQ users and no doubt those unable or unwilling to purchase extra points would be fined and jailed. Because almost every activity we engage in involves some sort of carbon production – writing this column on my computer for instance, washing dirty clothes, eating meat…breathing! --it isn’t difficult to imagine the political shenanigans that will accompany a policy prescription that is gaining traction among environmentalists.
Recall that during the presidential election of 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore was asked the question: “paper or plastic?” Laughter ensued as the climate guru struggled to correctly answer the very question for which the hapless shopper at the beginning of the commercial was arrested.
Thus what we learn from Audi is that the green police are more concerned with power over peoples lives (for power one appeals to politics; it is the absolute wrong place to go looking for morality), which is why it is politics not science, reason or sadly common sense that has driven the question of anthropogenic global warning.
SHO would be sweet.
I'll never,*ever* buy an automobile (or anything else) because the eco-scumbags approve of it.OTOH,if something I like *happens* to meet the approval of the eco-scumbags that approval won't necessarily cause me to look elsewhere.
Partially.
Subaru was always just a smaller-sized station wagon that offered 4wd on some of their models. Then a couple of years ago, they decided on a marketing change. Their Outbacks, etc. would be the PC SUV. They ran an ad with a PC couple driving their Subara through the forest (yeah, they’re real PC, outdoorsy types), stopping and watching a deer by a stream. Then your typical, overweight white male driving a monster SUV comes crashing his vehicle through the forest. The deer flees and the stupid fat white hunter-type guy asks the PC couple what they are looking at. The PC couple just shake their heads in disgust.
Subaru made a conscious decision to target a specific demographic and market niche. By doing so, they also made the conscious decision to exclude those outside their new parameters. Perhaps their goal was to make those outside the target market feel so ashamed and embarrassed that they would change their ways and join the target group. My point was that those who don’t care about fitting in to a target market look at such a commercial and flip the bird to the company and then consciously seek out their competition. I believe most truly independent-minded people react that way, and I believe most Freepers are like that.
It is the sheep that follow the herd. So, even if the sheep are talking about which field to graze in, they are all still sheep. The commercial is preaching to the choir, so to say. Will their sales increase? Who the hell knows. I sure as hell don’t care. And I sure as hell won’t by any Audi whether it was whatever type of car they were advertising or not. And, actually, until you reminded me, I had no idea which car they were advertising. I only associated the name “Audi” with “PC” and “sheep.”
I did the same thing with Absolut vodka when they launched an ad campaign celebrating the Reconquista of Aztlan. I haven’t bought a bottle since.
The Absolut ad was offensive, the Subaru ad was not . . . and I don't go around hunting for things to offend me . . . that would make me a lib.
I used to own a 4wd Subaru. That ad did offend me because it was bigoted. It stereotyped all non-PC SUV drivers as stupid, fat white animal-killing males. Such a bigoted stereotype is a leftist/liberal worldview, in my opinion. I don’t think all Prius drivers are eco-Nazis. But evidently the PC see all non-PC as some sort of evil.
And, again, the Absolut ad was offensive to you and me, but it was uplifting to the Mexicans that believe in the Reconquista. That is the double-edged sword of narrowing your target audience. They may have spiked sales amid the Reconquista demographic. The ad sparked a lot of conversation. Maybe it was good for their overall business. But I have yet to buy a bottle of their vodka, though it was my favorite.
Living in California with all the laws and bs ordinances passed by the Green Facists, I agree with what the Audi commercial showed us.
People, we know and friends who own or did own in many cases, Mercedes and BMW have had dreadful experiences with their so call German perfection machines.
We just don’t hear those complaints about the Audi’s from their owners.
Their decision to go to a clean diesel instead of a hybrid that will cost society billions re handling the old battery situation is driving some of the eco facists nuts out here.
Kudos to Audi for daring to show how our California cities and counties are moving into extreme eco facism re what we buy and dispose off.
Their message was not to resist tyranny, but to knuckle under and collaborate like a good green nazi.
I'll wager that one of the reasons why certain European car makers are going diesel instead of hybrid is because more than half of the passenger cars on the road today in the EU are diesels...and,today,something like two-thirds of cars being sold there are diesels.So they have no development costs,as they would with hybrids,because diesels are already in major production.
I understand your point. “Green” has always been a marketing tool . . . in this particular case I would argue that Audi is simply playing both sides. In other words, that does not excuse the Subaru ad, just that Audi’s ad team managed to be both “pro” and “anti” with regard to this particular ad.
And here I've been thinking all this time that they're going after the "girly man" demographic!
And here I've been thinking all this time that they're going after the "girly man" demographic!
Heh, this thread just reminded me - - I need to throw a couple more logs into the woodstove..
These enviro-weenies have to be cognitively challenged!
Mark Steyn’s mind can only operate on one channel at a time, thus he fails to fully absorb the message.
Everybody that is missing a few gray cells anyway....
And saving the trees gave us forest fires that burn for weeks, and forests that will never be forests again...
Don't forget, Steyn was pushing Obama in the spring of '08!
The Subaru ad was insipid to the nth power. (and their cars are crap, I know cuz I have one)
Amen!
.
Yeah, right.
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