Short Form Video: Catch and Release

Short vides seem to have taken over social media. From funny and silly to tutorial to influences and, of course, commercial, they are long enough to catch our attention but short enough to keep us from getting bored.

Here is a short video I encountered on Instagram recently. It's technically an advertisement for Fiat car company, but I have to say it uses a very non-traditional approach.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DO3RQVCDBxD/?igsh=cmt3NmtjM2o0Y21h

The video was circulated by the page "Wasted" which has 17.7 million followers and seems to make posts of memes that make posts about current news and events. Some of it is shocking and some of it is satire. TBH, I don't even know when I started following this page, but at some point I must have clicked on something and it never offended or annoyed me too much otherwise I would have unfollowed it. This is all background about the poster...but also a digression.

The video I'm sharing had a title attached by the posted that read "There are dark ads, then there's this ad." now that I look at it, I guess that was kinda clickbait--what makes the ad so dark and sinister? It's for a silly little car, how dark could it be? 

Synopsis of the short video (*commercial) from Fiat

The ad opens with a young couple leaving the house. The woman is driving the Fiat car and the man is holding his phone, staring at it without taking is eyes off the the thing. It seems like they are going on a road trip. The man asks the woman if she can drive because he has some work to do.

They are driving through the desert with big wind turbines. She stops the car to take pictures while the man is leaning against the car, still glued to his phone. Next they car in the car, driving through a city at night. The woman pleads with the man to look up, but he doesn't. 

A few seconds later they are driving though a remote section of the desert with some interesting rock towers. While the woman admires the scenery, the main is still looking at his phone and complaining about not having any signal.

In the last scene, they are driving on a snowy mountain road. The woman pleads "you aren't even looking at the snow," and the man (of course still on the phone) puts his finger up to his lips and shhhhshes her (BTW, that's never a good thing to do to your partner when they are driving). Th woman looks a bit peeved.

---Spoiler Alert! Don't read below if you want to watch and enjoy!---

Finally we see the Fiat pull to the side of the road. They are at the edge of a cliff on the mountain road. The woman has a grin on her face and says "Well, we're home!" The man is still staring at his phone. Without looking up he says "well finally, I can get some wifi." He opens the car door and steps out without looking...falling off the edge of the mountain! He yells "Shiiiiiiitttt" so we can all hear that he is falling (probably to his death). The lady pulls the card door closed, smiles, and drives off down the road.

The video closes with the Fiat logo, the model of the car and the a website for more info.

So why is this video an ad? Why would a business make something like this?

As with any kind of rhetoric, there are many ways to interpret it. Personally, I think someone at Fiat had a dark sense of humor and was very creative. In a world awash with advertisements, anything that stands out (without violating the law) is probably going to garner more views and potentially more revenue.

Many people have probably felt annoyed being around someone who is paying more attention to their phone than to them (we can relate to the woman). But at the same time, most of us have probably had moments when we were so engrossed in our phone or tablet that we lost touch of the reality around us a bit (we can also relate with the man). While she does stop the car and lie about being at home, the woman didn't open the door or push the man out--that would have definitely been criminal. So while it's a dark ad, there is still some levity and humor in it.

More interesting, I think the actual product being sold fades into the background a bit in this ad. We are focused on the woman and the man, all the places they are going, and the story unfolding that we forget to focus on the car itself. At the same time, the fact that the little Fiat is going all over the place is subtly defying most expectations of a tiny European car. We imagine a fiat driving in city and being good for parking, not cruising through the desert and over snowy mountain roads. 

The short video is long enough to tell a story--I would argue it's a memorable story. Similar to the way people talk at work about Super Bowl ads, this short video has a strong and relatable story line that some people would actually find funny. They might talk about with friends or send it to them as a DM.   

Artificial Intelligence Statement: This full blog post was written without the use of generative AI; it was written fully by a human :-)