Do Your Part: Buy an Audi, Drive Fast

Thursday, October 8, 2009 6 Comments

Today was International Walk to School Day, and according to this Audi commercial, if you participated you're a big loser.

In all seriousness, this has to be one of the most obnoxious spots we've featured on Streetsblog. Basically, per Audi: If you take transit, you're a glutton for punishment; if you ride a bike, you're a hapless weenie.

But Audi owners? They're just like you: "trying to do their part" for the environment. Only they do it by driving a $30,000, fossil fuel-burning, CO2-emitting private automobile. Though it is "clean diesel" -- you can pretty much drink that stuff, right?

And judging by how the A3 is portrayed zipping along a curvy mountain road, leaving lesser vehicles in its wake, you'd best stay out of the way while Audi drivers go about saving the planet. Weenie.

Marie

Yeah, ouch. That’s pretty unnecessarily vindictive. But at least it hints that bikers and transit riders might actually be making Audi feel threatened!
Will Campbell

I’ve written about this elsewhere how it’s a shame Audi felt compelled in this ad to denigrate alt-commuters instead of picking on a far more worthy target with a similar over-inflated sense of self-importance: gas-guzzling SUV drivers.
http://www.thebusbench.com browne

I think there is truth to what Marie says. Yes the alt transit community was mocked, but at least they felt we were worth mocking. Acknowledgement of existence is step one. I know it seems odd, but for people to acknowledge that you exist in a commercial is a big thing.

And they showed a bus in LA.

Yeah Audi made fun of the bus, but when you have you seen a LA bus in any capacity negative or positive ever. Who outside of LA even knows we have a public transit system at all.

Though once corporate realize you exist they just try to figure out how to sell you stuff: aka LEED condos, LEED anything, apartments by the rails that are way more than the average person in the surrounding community can afford, overpriced organic coffee served by people who can’t even afford to go to the doctor, but it’s eco so it’s OK.

Yeah so just being careful about step two is important.

Browne
Phat_Phrank

Many people are trying to do their part and running cyclists off the road or turning into pedestrians in a crosswalk in your Audi (or Prius, other hybrid, or whatever else) doesn’t make you any better than a gas-guzzling SUV driver. I think it’s interesting too how Audi makes fun of the older wagon – for one, a retrofitted older vehicle probably has a smaller footprint, but two, not everyone can go out and buy a new car. I do my part by bicycle and I have more fun doing it than I ever did as a driver, although granted, I never drove an Audi. It’s environmentalism for the affluent.
http://www.thebusbench.com browne

The environmental movement it trying to be bought.

The ideas of bicycles, public transit and walking is a sick prospect for people who like to sell crap. They tried to offset this with the overpriced apartments and condos, but owing to the economy going to hell the strategy of making money off this is now a pipe dream.

So what are they doing now? Rebates for cars. Maybe you can’t afford a house, but you can afford a car with the right financing, with a lease, right?

Also they are trying to scare us, cycling is dangerous, the street is dangerous, busses are dangerous, shooting and killing are going up, you need to stay safe and stay in your car. A new car, because in an old car maybe it will break down and you will be in a bad neighborhood.

It’s all about money and trying to make you spend the most amount of money possible.

If it’s new it isn’t green and it’s not eco. The are very few new items you need to buy food and underwear to name a couple, but those items are only green or eco if someone was paid a fair wage to produce them.

Everything else is already available thanks to our long period of prosperity and all of the junk we have accumulated.

Blind consumerism is the root cause of the destruction of the planet and our communities.

Browne
Phat_Phrank

I’d also venture to say that while some people CHOOSE to ride the bus, most ride out of necessity. So lets make fun of people who can’t afford to drive. Suckers.

(Yes, I certainly recognize that some people ride the bus or bicycle out of motivation to truly “do their part.”)