Truth Versus Advertising: Even Volkswagen Gets The Blues

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

This new Volkswagen ad is the first global thrust of the firm’s latest ad campaign, which centers around the concept of environmental friendliness, and the tagline “Think Blue.” The ad is nothing special in itself, other than being somewhat hypnotic in its cross-cultural depiction of changing environmental consciousness, but the blue-is-the-new-green campaign as a whole is more than a little confusing for a number of reasons.


As we explained nearly two years ago in a piece titled “Blue Is The New Green Is The New Bullshit,” the blue-as-green thing is both based on absurd marketing assumptions (“The color blue is associated with freshness, dynamism and lightness,” to quote VW’s own deep thinkers) and is being relentlessly used by trend-chasing auto marketers from every corner of the industry. VW already ha “BlueMotion,” while both VW and Audi use “AdBlue” for diesel exhaust treatment. Mercedes calls its similar clean-diesel system “Bluetec.” Bluetec Toyota uses blue prominently for its Prius badging and branding. Hyundai brands its low-C02 European models with the “BlueDrive” tag.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Alex Hannan Alex Hannan on May 23, 2011

    Is it just me, or does most "advertising" in this day and age utterly fail in achieving its mission (i.e., making me want to buy the product)? Whenever I see older ads, I'm always impressed with how clever, powerful, and effective they seem to be. WTF happened over the years?

  • Herb Herb on May 23, 2011

    Strange thing. In German "blue" = "blau" = "drunken", as in "Heute blau, morgen blau und übermorgen wieder" (with awe-inspiring video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Wj9pZvl16w). VW should hire this guy.

    • Mazder3 Mazder3 on May 23, 2011

      So you mean when Die Prinzen sang: "Nein ich hab's blau angestricken Vom Sattel bis zum Schlau Und ich find das aeusserst passend Denn blau bin ich manchmal auch" they weren't singing about being sad? The things my German teacher didn't teach me....

  • Cole Cole on May 23, 2011

    Blue's been the new green for a while now (2008?). I think it started with Synergy Drive. And now has migrated to Mercedes diesels (BlueSTUFF) I like Think Red better.

  • Charly Charly on May 23, 2011

    Blue signals environmentally friendly but still usable. Green says hardcore, which means no car as it uses oil.

    • Type57SC Type57SC on May 24, 2011

      Actually, Blue in connection with Diesel makes me think of smelly blue smoke. did anyone else watching the beginning of that ad expect it to break out into a "I'm Blue, dabba dee dabba doo, I'm Blue..."

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