The other day I saw an ad that nearly made me spit out my coffee. Nearly. It was an ad for a Volvo automobile. That wasn’t ridiculous, as Volvo makes safe, fine automobiles. What was ridiculous is that it was cross-marketed with Twilight. That’s right, the pre-teen bible is joining forces with safe cars for old people.
If you haven’t read the Twilight books, consider yourself lucky. Basically, it’s 800 pages of eye-f*cking. Punctuated by fights every 200 pages, and then a baby at the end. There. I saved you a huge amount of time. But the pre-teens love them, as it’s the closest thing they’ll get to the actual sexy times without damage.
Anyway, Edward, eternally 17-year-old vampire who spends his time hanging out in high schools and preying on young girls, drives a Volvo. Not really the choice of cars among teenagers, or the immortal, I imagine. I mean, Volvos keep you safe, and if you’re immortal, you really don’t need to worry about that. Says Volvo…
“It was a missed opportunity in the first film because the car had actually four minutes in the film, which is unheard of in product placement. It did really well without us doing anything, so with the second film we worked with the studio to develop a global program.”
There you have it. A global program. There is nothing Twihards won’t buy. Even really unsexy cars.
Comments
Maggie
November 12th, 2009 - 10:55:49 AM
Volvos, while far from sexy, have long been a mini-fetish of hipsters the world over. And Twilight, for all some would like to deny, is basically a Hipster movie in Tween clothing. I mean, fuck, Radiohead is on the soundtrack. And all that brooding? That's basically what all tweens & hipsters do. Really, it's a pretty ingenious match up.
1
Phunkle
November 12th, 2009 - 11:27:22 AM
I thought the same damn thing when I saw the add - WRONG demographic... Someone in Volvo marketing is about to lose his job. I just can't see pre-teens having the bank or the lust for Vovlo's kind of sexy.
2