VW Crash Ads; I don't like 'em

But apparently Seth Stevenson doesn't mind them...

Wham! Bam! Buy a VW, Ma'am!: The violent new Jetta ads.

I heard this story read by Seth Stevenson on NPR:

Slate's Ad Report Card: VW's Jetta Surprise

I don't think any commercial should make you feel like you've just gone through a wreck. Personally, I'm starting to associate VW's with wrecks... Like, if I get in a VW I'll be sure to have a wreck... And everyone after the wreck looks like they feel lucky, which means that there are plenty of wrecks when they aren't so lucky... Thus, I'm not getting the "safe" feeling from the ads. I'm getting the feeling like if I get into a VW, I'm going to get hit, and I'll be lucky if I'm not killed or severely maimed.

VW realized that they're getting hit hard in popularity. They have nothing really good up their sleeve. The gas mileage is mediocre, and there's no fun gadgets convincing someone that they should buy a VW instead of a nice Honda or Toyota. I think VW is trying to convince people that they have very safe cars because that's the only thing that they have to talk about... Unfortunately, they don't have time to wait for real-life statistics to prove that, so they have to create fictitious scenarios to make people believe something that may or may not be true.

And I do agree with Stevenson about one thing here. VW just got through telling me that I should buy their cars because they're zippy and fast and they can be pimped out at the dealer. Now they're trying to convince me that they're safe. I, too, feel a little whiplash here.