Are you TIRED of Companies Airing Auto Ads Trying To Be WOKE And LOADED With Virtual Signaling?

Let's start this topic with a question. If you like vehicle enough to buy does it REALLY matter if the company is 'WOKE' or not? Or if they're the quintessential good 'corporate citizens'?

Think about that as I frame this topic.

Last night I saw this Audi e-tron ad.



All I could think was all that virtue signalling in the ad REALLY necessary?

virtue signaling [ vur-choo sig-nl-ing ]

the sharing of one's point of view on a social or political issue, often on social media, in order to garner praise or acknowledgment of one’s righteousness from others who share that point of view, or to passively rebuke those who do not:

Do people not ALREADY know if you're trying to sell an EV that you care about climate change, the earth, being green AND BLM, puppies, have empathy, blah, blah, blah?

Do they think people REALLY don't know that a company LIKE Audi that has been around this long building good products ISN'T a decent group of people?

Isn't loading up these ads with EVERY possible woke, feel good message almost kinda PHONY? Like they're trying TOO hard?

I mean is someone in their ad agency really thinking we'd BETTER be SUPER WOKE in our ads because people are truly scratching their heads thinking hmmm, I WONDER if Audi likes Black people? We'd better make damn sure!

Message to Audi agency...You're worrying about things that NO ONE ELSE besides YOU is!

In fact, stuffing that in people's faces may actually be turning them AWAY from the brand.

So Spies, what are YOUR thoughts? Does it turn you off when companies push the virtue signalling button TOO hard?

runninglogan1 - 9/21/2020 9:24:31 PM

+1 Boost

So you would be okay with the commercial if the little girl was white.

Alrighty then.

Agent001 - 9/21/2020 9:32:52 PM

0 Boost

It has NOTHING to do with white or black. It's that the commercials are MORE about virtue signalling than the product. And it feels forced, phony and overboard JUST for the sake of trying to look woke and green. My opinion.

001

dumpsty - 9/22/2020 8:56:39 AM

+2 Boost

Agent001:
You say "woke"...so that makes the conversation a question of "black/white" & what is perceived as "more natural looking."

Is it not uncommon to see a young black woman, mother driving a high-end Audi? Or maybe the commercial shouldn't have necessary focused on showing faces or even showed the driver clear enough for us to even be able to tell what they look like.

Some of it is a distraction from the product, some of it is a passive way of showing support, some of it is a way of expanding or understanding their extended customer base.

MBCLS07 - 9/21/2020 9:27:19 PM

+2 Boost

Wokeness has metastasized within corporations and especially ad agencies. Many live within a bubble that confirms their biases. Those that recognize the virtue signaling for what it is are often reluctant to challenge it to avoid being attacked. Whether it helps or hurts a brand is determined largely by the composition of their customer base and whether such virtue signaling is authentic to the brand.

MDarringer - 9/22/2020 8:57:58 AM

+2 Boost

Spot on!

atc98092 - 9/21/2020 9:32:27 PM

+3 Boost

Since I don't watch hardly any OTA TV, and almost nothing I watch online has ads, I don't have to worry about seeing stupid commercials. Yeah, there are some great commercials. But it doesn't entice me to watch TV to see more ads. And the rare times I am watching something and an ad comes on, I immediately mute the sound.

MBCLS07 - 9/21/2020 9:37:39 PM

+1 Boost

One more note: One big trend in advertising is to cast against stereotypes, e.g. a female construction worker, lgbtq parents. The most essential casting role is that any person portrayed as an imbecile or buffoon must be a suburban white male. All that said, I don't think this particular Audi spot is virtue signaling in its casting of a black family. While statistically, white and asian Americans have higher incomes and more likely to buy an Audi, the data shows that black Americans have achieved strong economic gains over the last 4 years prior to the pandemic.

Agent001 - 9/21/2020 9:40:28 PM

+1 Boost

I used THIS particular commercial not because of a black family. It struck me because it seemed to pack in 10 different signals ALL in ONE ad. Overkill.

001

arrowmg - 9/21/2020 9:53:07 PM

+1 Boost

Last 4 years aside, plenty of black americans drive audi's as well as cars made by their direct competitors, so yeah i agree this is hardly virtue signaling. if anything, it's them probably realizing that they were missing an entire demographic.

MDarringer - 9/22/2020 8:59:38 AM

0 Boost

Actually Audi's research shows that Audi is the new Cadillac for African-American buyers.

arrowmg - 9/21/2020 9:39:06 PM

+2 Boost

I actually thought this commercial when it came out was NOT virtue signaling because it is in line with their whole space theme - new frontiers, pushing boundaries, blah blah, blah and that's what EVs are all about. Usually I would flag these types of commercials as cheesy and pandering but nah, it just casted a black girl instead of a white one.

vdiv - 9/21/2020 10:48:00 PM

+3 Boost

This is a rip-off from a six-year old Tesla fan-made commercial:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR_DJJ5qMEg

Honestly, which one excites more?

MDarringer - 9/22/2020 8:17:10 AM

+2 Boost

The whole notion of "being woke" isn't about actually being awake and proactive, but instead giving the appearance of caring and then doing nothing.

qwertyfla1 - 9/22/2020 10:21:33 AM

0 Boost

She should of been black, lesbian, handicapped, left-handed and Sunni Muslim to of effectively hit all the new hot PC buttons.