Hippie bus - VW Routan ad bludgeons aging boomers

In this TV ad airing now in Canada for the Routan mini-van, VW pictures aging hippies living chalk-a-block in a suburban house, slumped depressively over photos from their heydays, until a new Routan wheels by in slow motion, causing them to rise from their chairs, stunned. "We dared to reinvent our classic van." is the final slogan.

There's no percentage in mocking one generation to sell to another, especially if the generation you are mocking is older. Unless of course you are confident that economic clout has shifted so decisively to a younger generation that you think you can get away with it.

This is an example of a very interesting ad concept bumbling hopelessly over complexity. The relationship between generations and the adoption of the VW minibus by the counterculture are complicated matters. It would take insight and great art to handle them well; neither are evident here. For example:

A. It is interesting to think about where the hippie generation is at right now. How old are they? How do they live? What are they doing? What interests them?

Instead of answers or insight, we get clichees meant to be funny: hippies as decrepit (uniformly grey haired, wrinkled and slow moving), poor (living communally at age 65) and drowning in nostalgia (looking wistfully through photo albums that make their current decrepitude only more accute). The soundtrack, Live for Today by The Grass Roots, is like salt in the wound: counterculture spurning of convention, in particular money, leads to social and financial ruin.

B. It is interesting to think about the remarkable legacy of the VW microbus (a.k.a. the Transporter) and to try to capture some of that cultural value.

But instead of valourizing the legacy, it is mocked. The vintage bus seen briefly in the driveway is... what? still running? out of commission? a relic, as aged and useless as the various greyhairs rambling through the ad?

The VW Routan ad is an interesting development on, and departure from, an advertising trend identified in 2007 by Stuart Elliot in the NY Times. Elliot pinpointed the potential trouble even then. Just as agencies were seeing the 60s as something consumers could identify with, possibly tapping into anti-Iraq-war sentiment, Elliot noted the danger of superficiality, ads that only appeal to the financially successful of the older generation.

C. It is interesting to think that subsequent generations didn't make the same mistakes but today enjoy the kind of financial security and family life that makes the minivan the most successful of any auto manufacturers lines.

The rather grim reality here is that Chrysler minivan has consistently captured marketshare because it is incredibly cheap. Massive sales kept prices low, the joy of the market system. But as the automobile industry collapses, the minivan is unlikey to escape the fate of all other vehicle lines.

This is a train wreck of an ad that even if times were good, stumbles into the minefield of generational and economic classes, exploiting the disadvantage of one for an assumed-to-be-affluent other, that, as it turns out, has no or minimally more security.

The salvage:
Something can be salvaged from every ad, something revealing about our culture or how we think about culture.

In the VW Routan ad, it's interesting to see a group of aging people living together communally. What a good idea! Something definitely to be added to our toolbox of coping strategies for the new millennium.

The prognosis:
Will 60s nostlagia ads be shelved under the current economic meltdown? Certainly it is challenging territory, emotionally rich but also highly sensitive. Finding just the right balance between the idealism of the 60s and the cruel realities of the present could be very rewarding. The Obama agenda (www.change.gov) places high value on the ethics and creativity so evident in the 60s. Advertising with a 60s bent has the potential to reinforce the message of bringing people together, doing things in new ways.

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