Advertising Review: Volkswagen Park Assist

Volkswagen, with the help of DDB Tribal Berlin Germany, has created an advertisement to promote their new Park Assist feature. This feature allows drivers to press a button to enable their car to park in tight spots for them by using sensors, and the assistance of the driver pressing the pedals. Volkswagen claims that their new feature is very effective and accurate, which is the message that the print is trying to convey.

The advertisement print depicts three bright orange goldfish with a single spiky porcupine lined up between them, with the small text saying, 'Precision Parking. Park Assist by Volkswagen'. The four animals are lined up diagonally and parallel on a dull grey-white background with the text and logo printed in the bottom right corner. On the top right side of the ad, there’s a link to the Volkswagen website. The porcupine between the goldfish is meant to represent a Volkswagen with its new Park Assist feature, while the goldfish represent the other various cars on the road.

Since Volkswagen is a company that specializes in cars, the intended audience for this ad is anyone over the age of 16 who can legally drive. However, this ad can appeal to any age group over sixteen, as Volkswagen offers a variety of sports, every day and executive car models. The new Park Assist feature may costly and for someone to want to buy a car based off a single new feature, they would probably be in the middle class or above. This ad may also appeal to individuals who are not confident with their parallel parking and see this new feature as something that will be useful to them.

If you were to look at the ad briefly – you can’t see any car-related objects such as steering wheels, tires or even anything to do with the road or parallel parking. The creator of this ad grabbed the attention of the viewers by using animals instead of people or car-related objects so that they would have to actually think about what the advertisement is trying to sell. However, when you look closer, there’s a printed text saying 'Precision Parking. Park Assist by Volkswagen” and the company’s logo. Because of the logo at the bottom corner of the print, the audience can associate the advertisement with Volkswagen. Now that the audience knows the basic idea of the advertisement, they can see the how the analogy of a porcupine parallel parked between three bags of fish relates to real-life. The use of the dull grey-white background symbolizes elegance and class, allowing readers to associate Volkswagen with maturity and seriousness as well as allow us to focus on the analogy.

This advertisement provokes the emotions, values and associations of the readers. The use of animals in this advertisement leads people to be more sympathetic and understanding. The fish in water bags presents the impression that their fragile; this idea comes from the situation of the scene. The porcupine’s quills are very sharp and spiky, and the fact that the porcupine is placed between the bags of water automatically allows us to associate the quills as a cause of destruction. The fish are coloured bright orange to grab the attention of readers so they can symbolize the fish as a warming or hazard (the other cars parked on the street). This suggests that the audience should be very concerned about the fish lined up beside the porcupine. Because of this association, the reader feels a sense of fear for the fish since there is a contrast between the fragile bags and porcupine. If the porcupine were to hit the plastic bags, all the fish would die; this grabs the reader’s attention by provoking fear. The readers may feel compelled to buy the new Park Assist feature because they can visually see a representation of the danger of parallel parking. The spiky porcupine being in such close proximity to the fish demonstrates that the new feature is very accurate. This leads to reader to feeling a sense of safeness and accuracy that you can have with Park Assist.

As mentioned above, the contrast between the fragile bags and spiky porcupine suggest that the porcupine is more durable. Since its more durable, readers may assume that this car is superior to other models and brands. This leads the readers into thinking that the cars are not only durable, but also precise. In the print, there are four objects and only one of them is a porcupine, which represents the Volkswagen. This suggests that their car is rarer than others; therefore, more superior. Another factor that will affect how society views the company is the convenience of the feature for automated parking. This can either be seen as an asset so that you don’t have to take up too much time parking if you’re busy, or it can be seen as a lazy-way out of parking.