Everybody OK?

While it doesn't seem to be the biggest media buy in the world, it's hard to have the television on for any length of time without, er, running into the new spots from Volkswagen.

Should your viewing habits be limited to pay-per-view Jet Li film festivals or only such fare as Barney or Masterpiece Theatre on PBS, the spots all go something like this: A casual conversation between a seemingly safe driver and his or her passengers is interrupted by a sudden crash caused by a car appearing out of nowhere. Each accident appears real, and is vividly depicted. And in at least one spot, we see the air bags deploy and the front passengers smack face first into them.

Immediately thereafter, the uninjured driver and passengers are seen standing outside the car, surveying the damage and, mumbling a few choice - and hinting at profane - words of relief over what could have been, but wasn't. The final shot is of the damaged car, with the copy "Safe Happens." It is only then we discover that the sponsor is Volkswagen.

For anyone who has been in a car accident, the spots are disturbing, because they capture with such goose-bump precision that feeling when you realize a crash is coming and there's absolutely nothing you can do to avoid it.

From a positioning standpoint, consider the risk and reward of this approach for Volkswagen.

You have to admit, it takes courage to show an accident involving one's product, and then to show a damaged vehicle in what is often called "the beauty shot." Considering all the dreck coming from Volkswagen's marketing department over the last decade or so ("Fahrfegnugen," or however you spell it, "Drivers Wanted," etc.), this is downright edgy stuff.

But it's more than just a creative home run. While the competition blathers on with side curtain this and star rating that, or shows their cars being smashed in a test lab, Volkswagen literally puts us in their vehicle and says (visually), "You buy our car, you live."

You may not deal with life and death issues like car safety, but this approach does offer some things to ponder...

• Make it real. Volkswagen realized that to differentiate itself for car buyers stressing over safety, it had to hit that target audience, if you will, between the eyes. The message for the rest of us? Whose language are you speaking...yours or theirs?
• Make it powerful. Crash-test dummies don't have accidents; people do. Volkswagen presents an arresting image that makes the product claim more dramatically than any test result ever could.
• Make it simple. Bless the person who fought the likely suggestion to throw a couple of extra benefits ("...and, it gets great gas mileage, too!") into the spots.

The only criticism? So far, the series doesn't appear to include spots featuring families with children. If anyone would seem to perk up over a safety message (witness Michelin's long-running "Because so much is riding on your tires" campaign), it would seem to be the world's soccer moms.

Even with this bit of timidity in terms of targeting, the spots are guaranteed to have you tapping an imaginary brake pedal from the comfort of your easy chair.