The big question that is begging to be asked now is if this new campaign is working. While we may not fully know the extent of how successful it was until thirty years down the road when the supplemental ads to the campaign printed in magazines show up in antique stores all over, it is possible to take a brief look around and see what sort of buzz is already coming up in conversations.

I have both overheard, and been involved in, conversations in which the extremity of the advertising campaign is discussed. These conversations were all before VW put out their own ad in which the two characters involved discuss the plausibility and reality of the other "Safe Happens" commercials. The exact same observations make in the commercial were all major points in the conversations as well. This leads me to believe that either the marketing agency had a good idea as to what the public's reaction would be to the ad campaign or they listened after the campaign started and created another ad specifically designed to encompass the public's reaction. Either way, it shows a strong campaign which has evoked a strong feeling with the public, much as the "Think Small" campaign of over thirty years ago.

Volkswagen even goes so far as to make the ad even more edgy and memorable by letting the viewer's mind fill in the last audio bit of every ad. Every ad ends with one of the people who was in the VW when it was wrecked uttering a shocked "Holy sh..." The ad is self censoring, and the actual phrase is never said. However, it is still mentally filled in, as it is a very common phrase in the American culture.

So, is the ad effective? It's target audience is broader than the VW GTI "Fast" commercials. It's more comprehendible to then general populace than Volkswagen's brief "Unpimp My Ride" ad campaign, which incidentally seemed to make the rounds on the Internet more than on the broadcast channels. I would have to say that it is definitely one of their more effective ad campaigns in recent times. We'll just have to wait a while to see if it makes the jump from effective to classic.