Bizarre comparison: Is it false advertising for BMW to pick on Volvo?
I thankfully don’t watch many commercials. But maybe I’m missing out.
From what I gather, this bizarre commercial first aired during the Super Bowl. But it’s new to me.
I think the commercial is bizarre because in an effort to promote its supposedly clean diesel SUV, BMW portrays an exhaust-belching car that unmistakably is an old Volvo. A diesel Volvo, apparently.
While I appreciate BMW’s desire to contrast clean with dirty, did it have to select such a distinctive car design to pick on? It could have selected any number of nondescript cars to outshine. Instead, it portrays its competitor’s car as being almost evil. BMW’s shiny new offering by comparison looks like it might single-handedly save the planet.
It seems incredible that Volvo doesn’t have a problem with this. It really reminds me of the old “Polar Seltzer” commercial spoofing the Coca-Cola polar bears seen in Coke commercials during the Winter Olympics. Competing Polar Seltzer’s bears humorously reject a can of Coke upon being admonished by a sign to “Keep the Arctic Pure,” and reach instead for a can of Polar Seltzer. Nice gimmick, but Coke sued for false advertising because Polar Seltzer wrongly suggested Coke is impure. Coke famously won, and Polar had to change its ad.
If old diesel Volvos don’t actually spew soot like the conclusion of “Citizen Kane,” I think BMW is taking the same unfair advantage that Polar Seltzer took.