I’d like to Buy the World A…Volkswagen?

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Sorry. We can’t help it. While we like this Deutsch LA-created Volkswagen Super Bowl teaser ad which gathers together a cavalcade YouTube freak outs for a come-to-Jesus-like moment with reggae musician Jimmy Cliff, we can’t help but conjure visions of Coke’s 1971 classic “I’d like to Buy the World A Coke” commercial. Oh wait. It was intentional. My bad.

The teaser, which leads off with clips of the Eharmony cat-hugging woman; the sad Packers fan; “Boogie,” the guy who destroys his Xbox because someone called him fat; the baseball coach who throws a tantrum at an umpire; the screaming politician; and the sports mascots who fight each other, ends with them all coming together in a field as Cliff sings a rendition of “C’mon Get Happy? from the Partridge Family.

And so it would seem all one now needs to be happy is a new VW. Great but what is the ad saying here? The cost of happiness just rose from, say, $1.50 to, say, $22,000? That’s pretty steep. While we own a VW and don’t drink Coke, we still think we’d opt for the cheaper solution. Then again, we already own a VW, hence, we’re already happy and don’t need a Coke. Sorry, Coke.

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Steve Hall

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