Monday, August 09, 2004

How long before someone starts marketing a SUX?

We've posted recently about politicians or their DJs being seemingly unaware of the associations of songs that they adopt for their crowd-pumping music. The same thought came to mind as we watched a commercial for yet another hideous Sport Utility Vehicle, this one being some genre of Nissan. There's already much repositioning going on in the marketing of the SUV and indeed the term SUV itself may not be long for this world. But the ads have clearly moved away from their traditional Canyonero format to something that's meant to be simultaneously more soft-focus and "cool" -- the latter as defined by the suits in PR companies.

Now, "cool" might be taken to imply gritty and alternative, which is not quite what the well-off half-wits who drive these things want, so in its musical choice, the Nissan ad finds what seems like the perfect solution -- a song, Surfing on a Rocket, by French techno-druggies Air which does indeed sound all smooth and airy yet vaguely edgy. And if you haven't heard of Air, it's that band that your annoying Eurotrash friend is always telling you about.

But is it really such a good choice? The song's video hasn't been that widely seen as it tends to only make the late night rotation on MTV, but its basic imagery is a fairly literal exploration of the title, a mixture of the military and the Phallic with a crazed American general and a 1950s-era army base honey joyfully riding the aforementioned rocket. [Here's the least technologically annoying link to the video]. Will Nissan be as happy with this ad if it succeeds in making the song and its video extremely popular?

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