Volkswagen Polo Advertising

Volkswagen Polo advertisement Marco Mannoni Eric Sabatino Volkswagen, which means “people’s car”, is one of the most selling automotive companies in history. It has three cars in the top 10 list of best-selling cars of all time, the Volkswagen Golf, the Volkswagen Beetle and the Volkswagen Passat. The protagonist of the Volkswagen Polo advertisement is a student who is bullied by a group of “cool” guys. The situation changes when he gives a drive to one of the most beautiful girls of the school with his Polo.
At the end of the advertisement the bullied guy will look more cool than the other guys thanks to a joke associated with the qualities of his car, the Volkswagen Polo. The purpose of the advertisement is to persuade young people that Volkswagen Polo is a young car and it’s made for them. As we can see in the advertisement there are only young people who act young, for example the joke that makes the advertisement funny is made only thanks to the qualities of the car and the behavior of the protagonist: if the car wasn’t powerful and the driver wasn’t driving hard, the joke couldn’t have been made.
The advertisement is surely oriented towards a male audience. If we look at the ad we see that the actors are only students, probably university students. The joke that makes the ad funny matches with young people’s habits and behavior. This means that the target market for this advertisement is very small, it probably goes to a minimum of 18 years old (the age you can get the driving license) to a maximum of 23 years old (possibly your last year as a university student).

This also means that the people who are the target maket probably don’t have any personal income and the car is supposed to be a present by their parents. The prototype of the target market for this ad is a middle-class 19 years old student who has just graduated from high school and deserves something very cool to start his new college experience in a positive way. The advertisement personality is particularly strong and it promises to the clients that they are going to buy one of the best young and also cool cars on the market.
The product, a car in this case, is necessary for almost everyone in the world, but considering the target which the advertisement is addressed to, it is not strictly necessary. We’re not talking about a mobile phone or a high school degree, many young people use public transportations and go wherever and whenever they want with them. The advertisement wants to make its target market understand that Volkswagen Polo is not a vehicle, it is an experience.
The stress on the feelings rather than on the technical qualities is supported with a very young advertisement which doesn’t focus on the car itself but instead focuses on who’s driving the car and how he looks and behave. The media used for this advertisement is internet. The only use of internet is justified by the content of the advertisement which could have been felt rude and controversial if aided on television. The fact that the ad is available only on the internet consents Volkswagen to look fashionable and trendy to its young clients and to don’t ruin the reliable image that it has with older people.