Affordable Luxury

Once again, I'd like to travel back in time and look at yet another advertisement from the Super Bowl. In this blog, I would like to offer opinion regarding the motive behind Volkswagens "The Force" commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0

Besides being incredibly clever and funny, I think that our class looked at this commercial the wrong way. Many of my classmates believed that this commercial was focusing on the family aspect of Volkswagen. However, being the shy person that I am, I did not raise my hand and tell them that they're wrong, at least to some degree. My first analysis of this commercial, was that Volkswagen wishes to prove to its target audience that you can have a luxury car, but at a reasonable price, one that suits the budget of the everyday family. In today's economy, I think that is something that many car owners are looking into.

As a sociology major, I have come to realize that status in our society can easily be "bought" via material possessions. But, not all of us can afford Mercedes Benz, BMW, or even Audi (who is advertising "New Luxury"). I think it is important to point out that such "new luxury" does not come at a cheap price. The new Volkswagen (which is being advertised), is the company's way of saying hey you can have the family, have the car, and still have it all. You don't need to empty your bank account in one fail swoop. Status doesn't always have to come at the price of spending thousands of dollars. In fact, I see this motto of Volkswagen to carry over into a lot of their new commercials. For example, the new Jetta (see link). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwLG7YKfxtw

Overall, this ad is clever and definitely ties into the emotion of family memories etc. However, I think the companies main focus was to prove to consumers that Luxury does not have to come at such a high price.

Commercial Rating: 4 stars!