Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Car ad aimed at fathers

Here is a fatherhood-themed ad for the Fiat 500L in the UK.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

The ad is a music video about about a dad who drives his twins around in the middle of the night in order to put them to sleep. A wife, his band, a unicorn, and a cute female pedestrian make appearances.

I did that a few times. One of my kids had a hard time going to sleep as a baby. Driving in the car put her to sleep every time. One time a cop actually stopped me at about 2am and asked me what I was doing. I explained it to him. Later I got a swing that was more convenient.

This is part of an organized ad campaign in the UK. (The dad drives on the left side of the road, most of the time.) I am not being paid to post this. Is this one of those rare ads that portrays dads in a positive light? You decide.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Obviously this is his wife's car because white is such a chick color. Maybe he has a sporty two-seater which is inadequate for twins. But what a nice dad to do the needful to help the kids get to sleep.

It's quite reasonable to limit oneself to two children and if he plans on staying with this same wife, he might consider a vasectomy instead of the "double rubber" strategy expressed in the video.

I rented (a red) one of these from Avis Rent-a-car at JFK airport a couple of years ago on the way to a child custody and visitation hearing. After grilling me thoroughly for almost an hour, the very same woman judge who took away all of my visitation at an ex parte hearing of which I had no notice turned to the other side with a look that said, "So this is the guy you told me about?" After hearing from not one, but two, lawyers for my ex-wife, who had apparently exhausted all credibility, the judge said, "Bring me an agreement on Monday or else I'm going to choose between the dad in California and foster care here." So I spent the weekend with my Fiat 500, there was no agreement, and my kid came with me when I dropped it off.

I think it takes a woman judge to give a man a fair shake. The men judges think they're being chivalrous by bending over backwards to favor women. But a woman judge expects another woman to stand on her own two feet, be a grownup, and work out an agreement with the other parent.

The key thing about the car is that it has a clutchless manual transmission, which would be great for driving in the Santa Cruz Mountains when your left knee has flexed to step on a clutch pedal for as many years as mine.