The Hard Sell: Fiat 500 TwinAir, The Guardian’s The Guide, 2012
The Guardian‘s The Guide, 11 February 2012
[I was a big fan of The Guide and an even bigger fan of 200,000 people reading my words. I think I wrote four Hard Sells; the last one was re-written by a sub-editor so that it didn’t make sense – so I stopped sending in my ideas. This one was pretty much kept as per my original and I probably had a big smile on my face all day when I saw it in print. As for ‘Jenny on the block’, her 2020 track “In The Morning” (If you love me/Say it in the morning/Not just in the evening/Only when you want my body) is one of the worst tracks in pop history.]
Like pop budgie Christina Aguilera and one-trick raunch merchant Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez can’t pour a bowl of Shreddies without breaking into a choreographed dance routine. The same seems to be true when taking her Fiat 500 for a spin, as Jen, in the ad, pops out to buy twinkies, pastrami on rye, a stick of butter, or whatever else Americans gorge themselves on. Obviously the sight of Lopez in anything other than a fully blacked-out Hummer will cause befuddlement to the US public but tension rises as ravenous men who, forgetting their families by the hearth, dart after Jen with stolen gifts of poodles and flowers. A climax is reached when the by-now 50-strong mob drags J.Lo through the roof and, for a brief moment, any number of crimes could be committed. Needless to say, the worst possible offence occurs: they break out into a choreographed dance routine. Although the advert’s prime downfall is a lack of cohesion – it takes five views to figure out what’s going on – there are darker forces at work. Jennifer has £95m in her building society account, so she doesn’t need this sort of work, and she’s hardly starved of attention as the promo of her 2011 UK No. 1 On The Floor is the second-most watched YouTube video ever. What Jennifer achieved was to drag product placement to a rabid high. Staggeringly, her appearance on the American Music Awards last November featured the Fiat centre stage, before she simulated sex with rap’s Pitbull. Double disgusting. Fiat 500 – there’s a superstar in every car. It’d have to be Geoff Boycott or Mark E Smith before I’d ever set foot in one. Lee Gale