The Reanult Ad 2010

Added on 19 January 2010

Here's the new Renault ad that's currently playing all over the world.

A spectacular piece of pretentious pants. So let's consider the text of this absurd and outrageous piece of marketing mince:

Has there ever been a finer creation than the motor car?

Well, yes. The house. The phone. The television. The water filter. Penicillin. Anti-malarial drugs. Bread. The wheel. The Beatles. One could go on. This line was written by Jeremy Clarkson, but that doesn't make it accurate.

It's been making people happy, playing its part in every major revolution in society.

The two parts of the sentence are complete strangers to each other; and the second part is just plain barmy. The history books tell little of the motor car's part in the industrial revolution, for example. And how about the the Iron Age? Ancient Greece? The Romans? The French revolution? The Russian revolution? In fact, apart from the 1950's American drive-in movie revolution, which revolutions have featured the car at all?

But is it still in tune with the needs of society?

It's a car. People get in it when they want to go somewhere. That's what they did in 1906, that's what they still do. So, yes.

Is it still acceptable that some of us are able to drive, while others barely have the means to get around?

How about: Is it still acceptable that some of us are able to drive, while others have NOTHING TO EAT/HAVE TO WORK FROM THE AGE OF FOUR/DON'T HAVE CLEAN WATER/CAN'T WALK TO THE WELL WITHOUT GETTING RAPED? One has to loathe the implication that the worst thing currently affecting the planet is that some people don't have a car. The poor bastards.

Does enjoyment for some have to cost the lives of others?

More than likely. That's mammals for you. Look at those whales that like to play catch with seals.

Making the most of our lives today shouldn't imply a lower quality of life tomorrow. At Renault, we think it's time to change things.

Oh, for crying out loud.

For us, the pleasure of driving doesn't just mean pleasure for the driver. It's a pleasure we share with everyone around us.

At this point in the ad, a goregous woman - who's never been near childbirth in her life, I'll dare say - pushes a pram across a pedestrian crossing, smiling at the Renault which has stopped for her, clearly implying that any car other than a Renault would have mown her down, while crushing her baby into a bloody pulp.

For us, safety means more than crash test dummies thrown around during tests; it means people, it means lives.

Nobel Prizes all round for everyone at the company. They are so special.

For us, global warming goes beyond the emissions coming out of the exhausts. It's an issue we address before, during and after manufacture.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

From next year, Renault will launch a range of zero-emission vehicles to drive the car forward again. Towards people. And for life.

I'm swelling up with French pride. I'm not French, but I've been there a couple of times, and my family left Normandy in 1066, so I think I can share in the joy.

Renault. Drive the change.

After all that, and the best line they could come up with at the end was Drive the Change. In the pantheon of really, really crap catch phrases, that is on a par with I'm Lovin' It.

Renault - Halfway Up Their Own Rectal Passage

(Wouldn't it have been great if at the end of the Co-Op advert for Funeral Insurance, John Hannah had said, The Co-Op. Good.... With Death.)