This advertisement is about a car, Volswagen Polo. It is set in a very middle class white posh area. The trailer begins with a motorist leaving his house and getting into his Volkswagen Polo. He has a distinct Middle Eastern appearance and has also an Arab checked scarf wrapped around his neck. These scarves are commonly used by many Arabs around the world. After a short period of driving, the driver stops outside a busy café that has a very ‘English’ feel to it. Women are speaking on the phone, holding the baby and just walking by. The driver pulls out a detonator and depresses the button. At this moment of time, the car does not explode, there is just a explosion inside of the car and the car manages to contain it. Straight the slogan is seen ‘Polo. Small but tough.’
The institution that created this trailer is Lee and Dan team. This trailer is aimed for mature minds, people who are 18 and onwards. The reason why the target audience might not be younger than that, because being at a naïve age, it is really easy for the minds to be indoctrinated in anyway possible. If this is seen by younger audience, it can cause a lot of havoc and chaos, resulting in hatred amongst youth for other ethnic backgrounds. Having said that, it can be argued that it is created SO that the youth of today can link with what is shown on the news about WHO are the terrorists and what ‘kind’ of appearance to look out for. This viral advert is on youtube, msn windows, facebook ads, anywhere possible on the net and because there is a huge population of teenagers accessing the internet, maybe it IS created to target them. There are many issues with Muslims being linked with terrorism.
Around the world today, peoples mind have been programmed to think that every terrorist act is committed by a ‘Muslim’. What this Volswagen trailer has done is reinforce that statement. It is like a stamp mark on something that has already been said a lot of times, indirectly. Arab Muslim’s have a history of terrorist acts, which took the media by a storm and caused a lot of controversy to ensue. This act is destructive and economically can result into havoc. The more people that are a victim of suicide bombing, the more the population will start to decrease which will soon result in a downfall of the economic system.
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ReplyDeleteEBI more in depth analysis of why such viral ads are successful, why controversy is useful, who made the ad and why it wasn't sanctioned by VW? Issues of representation. Evidence of the effects on society which you have identified. Secondary texts which comment on the ad or on ads like it.