Spec ads are awesome. Why? Because the creators can do what brands wish they could do; create commercial that aren’t bogged down by legal, cultural or moral concerns. In a spec ad, you can just tell it like it is. Or how you’d like it to be. Or how you’d imagine it to be. Which is exactly what three German film students, Tobia Haase, Jan Mettler and Lydia Lohse, did when they created this spec spot for the Mercedes Benz C-Class.
Many have wondered and pondered what the world would be like had Hitler not existed. It’s the stuff of many a movie plot, documentary and science fiction show episodes. BUt we haven’t seen Hitler front and center in many commercials.
In this 80-second clip which has garnered over 730,000 YouTube views since Friday, the Mercedes-Benz, equipped with Collision Prevention Assist, has a mind of its own. While the driverless Mercedes smartly detects children in the middle of an Austrian countryside roadway and stops, the vehicle makes an entirely different decision when a young Adolph Hitler crosses the roadway.
The ad closes with the tagline, “Detects dangers before they come up.”
Predictably, Mercedes is not happy with the spec ad and has forced the students to slap “this is spec work” labels prominently on the video.
While Hitler is certainly a touchy subject, the students report they simply wanted to explore what it would be like if machines had souls and could make human decision. Via.
