A Kid Hates His Dad's New Subaru in Subaru's New Spot

Subaru takes a funny and unusual approach to marketing its latest model, the XV, in a U.K. campaign by recently-appointed agency MullenLowe London.

The spot depicts a father excitedly showing his son (who's doing a drawing of a cool-looking rocket-powered vehicle) his new Subaru. However, instead of being enthusiastic, the kid completely hates the car: it doesn't have rockets, or anything fun like his drawing and he doesn't care about its all-wheel drive system, safety or reliability. "Maybe one day you'll get to drive it," offers the hapless father as the kid stamps his feet and throws the drawing on the ground.

The spot ends with the words "One day they'll understand." It's a theme somewhat reminiscent of a recent VW ad from Germany, which underlines how VW cars differ from the fantasy cars that children dream about, but might save their lives. However, the humorous approach is different-- and kudos to director Keith McCarthy of Stink Films for getting a great performance out of the kid.

The work breaks this weekend on TV, in cinema, in print and online, including a media partnership with National Geographic. Subaru's communications manager, Alexandra Lyons, comments in a statement: "Auto advertising all looks and feels the same. The engineering that goes into our cars sets Subaru apart from that style over substance. We don't have the biggest marketing spend in the car market so we need to outsmart others to win attention, and this work for the XV does just that."