11 thoughts on “Thanks, BMW”

  2. Not too young to be “driven with pleasure,” according to the logo BMW chose to place at the bottom of the page. Sigh.

    An upside to this continual winking and nudging between the members of the patriarchy: Having just seen this, a colleague of mine is now planning to show the ad to her students in a class on media images of gender!

  3. I am assuming this is from BMW US (given that it’s in English, not German). So, to complain, you can go here. At least that’s the closest to a contact form I could find – this is one of the products after all…

  4. I used this ad in an educational slideshow, and it didn’t have the “but do you really care?” — that part looks photoshopped in to me.

    Not that it really matters; it’s equally horrifying either way. I just wonder who bothered to alter it (if I’m right that it’s altered).

  5. It looks like this might be an add from a 2008 campaign in Greece – see here (notice that the “do you really care” is not in this copy…). I wonder if they pulled it then – probably not.

  6. The “Do you really care” part was photoshopped – unnecessarily, since this line works much better left unstated. The original copy, penned by (evil?) advertising genius Daphne Patrikiou of BBDO Athens, just said “You know you’re not the first.” Despite being in English, the ad was created for the Greek market as Rachel suggests.

    I recall this ad being the subject of Internet discussion a couple of years ago. Some people connected the ad to an arguably feminist message about the de-fetishization of female virginity. Anyhow, it would be interesting to see some reactions from the ad’s target demographic.

  7. Here’s the (non-)response I received back from BMW:

    “Thank you for contacting BMW of North America, LLC regarding the print ad you saw I was sorry to hear of your disappointment with one of our advertisements.

    On behalf of BMW, please accept my apology. We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us. Your comments have been forwarded to the appropriate department for review. Please be assured that your sentiments will be heard and considered.

    If you have any further questions, please respond to this e-mail or contact the Customer Relations and Services department at 1-800-831-1117, Monday through Friday
    from 9:00 A.M. to 9:00 P.M., Eastern Standard Time. Again, thank you for contacting BMW.

    Sincerely,

    [Name deleted]
    Customer Relations and Services
    Representative”

  8. Seems we always just drop things down to simple sex and react to that. I don’t know what to think about this except what a clever way to keep people talking 3 years ex post facto. Do any of us feel manipulated?

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