There Has to Be Advertising for People Who Don't Have a Sense of Humor

As long as we're on the subject of advertising this morning, there's an interesting ad review by Seth Stevenson in Slate for a Scion XB spot, which asks whether it takes the Volkswagen "Think Small" strategy—turn a product's weakness into an asset—too far. The weakness in this case is that the car looks like a box, or, more specifically, like a tiny little bread truck. Scion believes—correctly—that the very knowledge that other people think the car is ugly and ungainly-looking is an asset to some buyers. But is smashing the car with a wrecking ball the best way to show that?

(Disclosure: The ad especially interests me because I own a Scion XB—but the 2005 model, which Scion purists like me prefer to the redesign because it is even more boxy and weird-looking.)