BMW’s Strange Casting: X6 Promo
By Gunnar Heinrich | YouTube
MAYBE it’s just me, but BMW’s been casting some pretty shady looking characters for its promotional videos. Consider this gentleman – who looks like a B-level Bond villain who James has to despatch on his way through to the top boss.
He doesn’t seem all that formidable, but we can be sure that he’s crafty, deceptive, ruthlessly evil, and smug. That last characteristic seem endemic in German car advertising.
In this company video for the X6, our mystery man is given a truly sinister cast. In this screengrab, for example, there’s a ghoulish way he’s putting those golf clubs into the trunk. He performs this simple action with such physical menace that it seems like he’s packing a small corpse.
Now we all understand that product videos are meant to draw emotional reaction from us. Sometimes they even provoke. And, in some measure, they’re meant to reflect the typical buyer – or at least the typical buyer’s mentality.
But if this is the case, does the typical X6 buyer see himself as either a smug middle manager or worse, a heartless international fiend?
Doubtful.
About the Author: Gunnar Heinrich is publisher of Automobiles De Luxe online and is executive producer of the Automobiles De Luxe Television series on PBS member station CPTV.
Johnny Canada | Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
It’s clear to me that Automobiles DeLuxe is slowly cultivating a cozy relationship with BMW by directly and indirectly promoting their vehicles. I can’t blame Gunnar for that; BMW’s press junkets have always had the best booze, shrimp and hookers.
But please, don’t insult your readers by even remotely believing the X6 (and other recent BMW abominations) even remotely deserve to be slotted into the Automobiles DeLuxe landscape.
Gunnar | Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
Johnny,
Your conspiracy theory is well taken, if misplaced.
I’ve not attended (yet) a single BMW junket. And we have no agreement to pitch or promote BMW products.
On occasion, on behalf of Automobiles De Luxe, I will ask BMW NA if they’ll lend us a car to review for periods of seven days.
In most cases, they say yes. It costs BMW a tank of gas and some small percentage of an umbrella insurance policy. It costs me time, money, and energy.
I don’t mean to degrade or insult anyone. And certainly not you, Johnny.