Serious Shmerious

I don't know if its just me being sad but has anyone else noticed the volume of car manufacturers advertising their cars with the concept: Serious fun?

I think this all started with the Renault Laguna, "serious playtime" I believe the slogan was, the advert its self didn't show much playtime but you heard the dulcet tones of a rat packer singing "Fly Me To The Moon".

Then I believe Peugeot was next to have a stab. Their advert showed every other car on the road as a toy and the Peugeot 407 (I think) to be quite normal. I can let Peugeot get away with stealing this idea because if they were trying to advertise the 407, and persisted in actually showing the car in the commercial they would have to have put it next to something slightly ridiculous to try to make it look remotely like a sensible choice. Who would by an ugly, slow, badly made heap of merde unless the only other choice is a wooden car with panel gaps that are of similar size the ones Janet Street-Porter has in her mouth. Strangely enough people still buy Morgans.

Some time around then Ford went ahead with their version, this ad featured huge sofas and stacks of books as buildings. I believe that Renault decided that it was clearly a good sales technique so went for it again with the Modus (the "shopping chute" alone not selling it? i wonder why) they played musical parking spaces this time.

So the last incarnation of this concept is again by Renault who have applied it to the new, distinctly dull Twingo. The new Twingo dances around some test track with playful objects jumping out at it from every angle until finally a boxing glove springs out and punches the Twingo which goes skidding off like a toy car.

Amazingly these adverts are very hard to find, only a few appear on YouTube and Google turns only useless results when I tried to research this topic. Thats why I have been so vague with the slogans, makes and models its all been based on my memories.

What I am starting to worry about though (I say worry...) is that car commercials are one of the largest areas of advertising and they generally start the trends. Ever since the Honda advert where the car parts made a sequence every one from Ribena to Coco Pops can't simply have there product move unless it is propelled to its final destination by 1,780 house hold appliances. What will the concept "serious fun" be applied to: Kitty Litter?