All Three Episodes of Audi’s New “Meet The Beckers” Campaign: The Start of Attack Ads?
Episode III: Raising the Stakes
The final episode of the Audi’s Arrested Development inspired advertising campaign, Meet the Beckers, has been released, and I’m excited.
In a world without new episodes of Arrested Development, it doesn’t take much to excite me. Even a commercial that’s vaguely similar to the greatest show of all time can give me a reason to get up in the morning.
Anyway, in the first episode, we meet the whole family. Jason is the regular guy, and the Audi driver of course. He’s bringing his girlfriend to meet his dysfunctional family for the first time. His aggressive brother Billy drives a BWM cuts off a Prius. His drunken, country club-visiting father (The Commander) drives a Mercedes. And his doormat brother (or brother-in-law, maybe) Lewis, drives a Lexus. It’s hilariously accurate and has lots of subtle jokes you may miss if you’re not paying attention.
Episode I: Meet the Family
Episode II: Getting the Bird
The internet gives businesses the freedom to make these kinds of advertisements, and reach a huge audience with them. These ads seem fairly expensive, but if they succeed in rebranding Audi as the regular guy of the high end automobiles, while simultaneously rebranding BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus as the Douche, Old Man, and Wimp of the automotive world, respectively… then these commercials have paid for themselves many times over.
Audi sort of hints at this at the end of episode III when Jason says “I can’t let them win anymore” or something to that effect. This may mean Audi is ready to take the gloves off, so to speak. The automotive industry is financially tight right now, everyone is losing market share and money, so the peaceful “live and let live” atmosphere may be over for now. This may be the start of some attack style ads as companies start fighting over the very limited amount of consumer spending out there.