Urbzen

Last week, I noted some of the unsettling racial/sexual overtones of the new Axe Dark Temptation campaign. But it’s not surprising I don’t like the ad; I’m nowhere near Axe’s 18-24 year old male target demographic.

Which is what makes CP+B’s recent Volkswagen “Routan Boom” campaign so bizarre. As an educated, solidly middle-class, 26-year-old female who would like to have children in the not terribly distant future and who is, as a matter of fact, actually in the market for a new car, I’m sitting square in the middle of VW’s ideal consumer real estate.

And yet the ads, which should be tailored to appeal to me, instead achieve the unfortunate trifecta of offending, confusing, and utterly creeping me out.

The 30-second spot “Meet Christine” opens with spokesgal Brooke Shields sounding the alarm about a growing “epidemic”:

“There’s an epidemic sweeping our nation. Women everywhere are having babies just to get the new Volkswagen Routan. Take this couple. Christine here is so seduced by German engineering, she’s having a baby just to get it.”

 

Probably the weirdest note these faux-public service spots, presumably aimed at the educated young women who make up a full 61 percent of the minivan-buying market, hit is the mocking tone they apply to one of the most monumental decisions in a woman’s (or man’s) life: When, or if, she wants to become a parent.

As traditional gender roles begin to thaw, more and more women are agonizing over the choices that come with potential motherhood—Can I keep my career and have a baby? What am I going to do about child care? Can my spouse or I afford to stay home? What if I’m still single, but my biological clock is ticking?

The Routan spots minimize these life-altering moments with a gusto not seen since Coors’ ’07 spot “Pregnancy,” in which the woman’s positive pregnancy test is equated with the changing color of the temperature indicator on the man’s beer.

Interestingly, as I was transcribing the line from the “Christine” spot above, I typed “Couples everywhere are having babies…” before listening again and realizing that it’s not couples, but women. That’s another unsettling aspect: Even though all of the women in the ads are coupled up (Dan Quayle would be proud), it’s always the woman who has initiated the pregnancy, apparently covertly, painting the men as dupes and the women as manipulators.

Also bizarre is the choice of Shields as the face of the “Routan Boom” campaign. In recent years she has spoken publicly about her struggle first with infertility, and then with post-partum depression. Now here she is making a joke about women who approach having babies with the same gravity as changing their hair. What?

Sales figures for the Routan aren’t yet available, but it will be interesting to see if they hit their mark. In portraying women as wonton, overgrown children impulsively having babies to get a new toy, the campaign dismisses the legitimate and pressing concerns of exactly the consumers it’s trying to reach. They’re not just doing a disservice to women, they’re doing a disservice to themselves.