Some aspects of the techno-utopian fantasy are especially worth skewering, and Dutch insurer Centraal Beheer does a pretty nice number on one of them: the self-driving car.
The brand has a knack for making disaster funny by casting some obnoxious stereotype as fictional villain. A couple of years back, it was a moron in a red Speedo doing circus tricks with his speedboat wheel. Now, in a new ad, it's a self-important ass reading the paper in the backseat of a Volkswagen that's being driven by a computer.
The commercial does bear a resemblance to Liberty Mutual's 2012 spot about human error, but adds another layer to the slapstick joke, and keeps it au courant by blaming the escalating fiasco on the disbelief of spectators distracted by the driverless VW. That premise is a stretch, but it's definitely good for a chuckle.
Now, if only the computer chauffeur would take its passenger into the ocean, or maybe just into a shipping container bound for a remote island inhabited entirely by robots.
CREDITS
Client: Centraal Beheer Achmea
Agency: DDB & Tribal Worldwide, Amsterdam
Production Company: Passion Raw
Director: Owen Trevor
Director of Photography: Tim Hudson
Producers: Dan Scott-Croxford, Kwok Yau
Editor: Guy Savin
Grading: Brian Krijgsman
Online: Ton Habraken, Stephen Pepper, Jeroen van Berkel
Sound Studio: Rens Pluym, Wessel-Jan van Zijderveld
Music: Massive Music