Volkswagen, Roasted
Two guys pull into a gas station and one pumps fuel while the other runs into the convenience store for a snack. As the man comes out, they give each other a long look with a faint smile before they switch sides of the vehicle and drive away. The tagline: "Well done."
Gay audiences have read the commercial as gay vague, imagining that the two men share a romantic moment, though Volkswagen says it was unintended. In the spot, which is called "Roasted," the men actually realize that they've been sunburned on only half their bodies from driving, but the burns are so light that many viewers never noticed it.
"There are some who say, 'We don't get it.' It's difficult to pick up the fact that they were sunburned," notes Volkswagen spokesman Steve Keyes. Because many consumers never understood the burn joke, "We're going to revise it to show the sunburn better with computer technology."
Back in 1997, the Volkswagen Golf offered perhaps the most famous gay vague commercial of all, the "Da, Da, Da" featuring two men who salvage a chair from the sidewalk into their hatchback. The ad, also from Arnold Communications, first ran during the breakthrough coming-out episode of "Ellen" and carried an enormous gay audience who saw the ambiguous commercial.
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