Dr Mumbo

It’s not a car, it’s a chat-up line

While Dr Mumbo isn’t surprised the Ad Standards Board rejected a complaint against the current Alfa Romeo ad, the report from the ASB is worth a read nonetheless – mainly because whoever works for the car company has really been drinking the Kool-Aid.

First, to the complaint: “This ad reinforces the abhorrent view that to gain attention sex can be offered by having the appropriate enticement (the car). It also reinforces the inappropriate notion that women can gain power and status by having sex with a prestige car owner.”

And then (and this is the bit where Dr Mumbo is won over by just how much Alfa Romeo, and parent company Fiat Chrysler Group, believes in itself: “Only an Alfa owner knows it. Driving an Alfa and owning an Alfa is unlike owning and driving any other car. It is as passionate and as iconic as motoring gets. It is a whole other level to owning a normal car. It is a badge of distinction. The campaign FCG has created uses different and surprising scenarios where that point of distinction is made.

“In the Advertisement, Kate is shown to be extremely self-assured and certainly comfortable with the choices she has made – she is not in any way depicted as exploited or degraded.”

 

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