What could be more timely than demonstrating the little car’s exceptional cargo-carrying capacity than three nubile women, one scantily clad, all three bound and gagged, occupying the boot space?
Closer inspection of the ad reveals that the caricatures are supposed to represent actual celebrities. In the front seat is Paris Hilton, looking over her shoulder and winking at us. The gagged lovelies are Kim Kardashian and her two sisters. It’s all good clean fun, in the best possible taste. And part of a wider humorous narrative in which well-known personalities gets their revenge on rivals by confining them to the back end of the surprisingly capacious Figo. We can tell this from another execution in the campaign, which shows ex-Formula One ace Michael Schumacher dealing with his rivals Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso, in the same summary manner. Oh, and get this. There’s a third ad with Silvio Berlusconi in the driving seat… need I go on?
Naturally, we’re never going to get so far as savouring the full complexity of the Team WPP (for it is they) humorous palate; not once our attention has been arrested by the sight of a restrained, near-naked Kardashian – and the tumultuous outcry which has accompanied it within right-thinking circles across the Indian sub-continent.
Ford, of course, is mortified. Though whether by the political and cultural insensitivity of the ad, or the chorus of execration that has greeted its appearance, is not altogether apparent. No doubt Team WPP will also be walking about with its tail between its legs for some time to come.
The official explanation is that the ads were created merely for “in-house” use (whatever that might mean) and that they somehow got posted on the internet.
Isn’t it a bit early for April 1st?
Or do creative teams really live in such a cultural bubble that they are wholly insulated from events in the wider world ?
Come to think of it, what were their bosses doing while all this harmless in-house glee was going on?
This post first appeared on Stuart Smith’s blog The Politics of Marketing.
