WomenOlogy

Click photo to view commercial

Fiat. I see Fiat as the European smart car for somewhat glamorous, mid-30s women. Their Super Bowl commercial, however, would correct me in my judgment, directing, what I would call, the most sexually charged commercial aimed at young men in their early 30s.

Perhaps it was a ploy, but whether it was a successful marketing strategy will be determined. Fiat played on their “European-ness”, with a tall Girl From Ipanema personifying what we would see at the punch line: a sleek red-and-black Fiat.

The Girl from Ipanema addresses an innocent bystander (somewhat adorable young man in his late 20s or early 30s) on a busy street corner with an Italian diatribe about who-knows-what, followed by heavy flirtation and innuendos over a cup of cappuccino. Finally, a Fiat 500 Arbath appears where the Girl from Ipanema was leading the duped young man.

I question the appropriateness and success of such a tawdry sexual ploy. David Ogilvy once said “A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself,” and believed in propriety over cheapness. I agree with him, but this ad was not targeted to someone with those sensibilities.

The last shot of the commercial shows a black and red smart car-meets-Ferrari, the driver shifting gears as the car handles a dangerous curve, reminiscent of a James Bond film. Fiat, the sexy smart car for men? I’m not convinced.

What I do know for sure: I was in a room of 25 chatty, gregarious 20-somethings and this commercial was the only 90 seconds of absolute silence during the whole game. The silence was followed by an uproar of laughter; we had all been duped, like the young man, to find in the model’s wake a smartish car, no less, with the tag line; “You’ll never forget the first time you see one.” I guess I didn’t.