VW Rabbit hops on back of Playboy
Volkswagen is really playing up the promiscuity of its small car's namesake, so much so that a promotional tie-in with that bastion of bachelorhood, Playboy, was inevitable. The September issue of the magazine features a back cover with a reverse angle shot of the front cover showing the backsides of three Playboy bunnies. The bunny in the middle, Holly Madison (who is also the queen bunny of Hugh Hefner's triplet of girlfriends), sports a tattoo on her lower back of a red VW Rabbit logo with copy that reads "The Volkswagen Rabbit. It's Back."
Volkswagen originally wanted to replace the traditional hidden Playboy bunny logo on the magazine's front cover with the Rabbit's logo. Playboy, however, nixed that idea, so VW's agency, MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky, came up with the idea of hijacking the adult magazines back cover.
[Source: Adweek]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
rwdmtparkingonly 8:10PM (8/03/2006)
The base rabbit's I5 sucks, managing to have poor power and fuel economy. The timing is especially bad for the later. It's appropriate that they're advertising in Playboy because anyone that would want the I5 rabbit must not have discovered the internet yet. If they had discovered the internet they would no longer need playboy, and they would know of the twincharger Golf GT (http://www.vwvortex.com/artman/publish/volkswagen_news/article_1496.shtml), the seriously competitive car that VW needs to bring here.
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Howard Kerr 9:54PM (8/03/2006)
Seriously, does ANYONE under the age of 40 read Playboy? Oops, buy Playboy?
And of all the places to put an ad...yeah, the back cover is THE runner-up spot in EVERY magazine. Seriously, THE second best place, if you can't get the front cover is a fold-out of the inside FRONT cover...don't these folks have any clients that advertize in car mags? This is going to be another pitiful print launch of a basically half-assed car.
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Jaymez 10:41PM (8/03/2006)
Easyrider is a much better mag than Playboy. The women are hotter and the articles are actually worth reading. Of course, no self respecting Easyrider reader would be caught dead in a VW Rabbit.
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Alan 12:18AM (8/04/2006)
Uh, did you guys read the story? It's on the back cover since the theme is "the Rabbit's back." It's a double-entendre. Easyrider doesn't fit with the Rabbit name, and would be a better choice for GM if it decided to use double-entendres to sell more Buicks.
As for the base engine, I agree VW should have brought over one of the base engines from Europe that gets better fuel economy (even the old 1.8T gets better fuel economy with a similar power output), particularly since they will be out of the diesel market until 2008. However, those who complain about the 2.5L's power forget that it replaced the 115hp 2.0 that didn't get much better fuel economy. Rabbit is also intended as a city car. The 200hp GTI is the sporty car. The 2.5L puts out "only" 150hp (a few more years of $3-4 gas and we'll see a decrease in power in the future as we did in the 1980s), but does put out 170hp of torque. This was VWAG's well-intentioned but misguided attempt to address the actual type of driving most Americans do (with our lower speed limits and more congestion). However, from a marketing point of view, VW would have done better to copy the Japanese and use high-revving, low torque engines that get better fuel economy and can post higher horsepower ratings (since we buy horsepower, even though we drive torque).
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Grajeda 1:21AM (8/04/2006)
ok then...
if this is not a good ad...
what??
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Glenn 1:34AM (8/04/2006)
I missed that, I did not notice the wording did not match front to back, and I missed the tatoo of the rabbit.
Maybe I AM paying too much time on the articles and not enough on the pictures.
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epilonious 8:23AM (8/04/2006)
Yeesh. The only thing likely to be breeding in VW Rabbits are electrical gremlins and engine trolls.
But hey, if each one of their cheeky ads gets a free publicity youTube promotion or ad-copy from Every Car Site Out There people will probably buy the dumb things anyway.
At least they're actually cheap now...
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dc 9:37AM (8/04/2006)
Let me get this straight, they won't allow their cars to be used in the Transformers movie because it's associated with war, but yet they seek out this?
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BG 9:53AM (8/04/2006)
#8
Violence vs. sex. Killing vs. admiring the human body. Bloodshed vs. beauty. Bush vs. Hefner. It's simple to me. Some people simply don't see the human body as something that is to be ashamed of and that sex is "dirty".
I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that some weirdos take their obsessions to weird, crazy, and sometimes violent levels but I don't think this is a contest. I applaud the ad agency as well as VW for giving this a go (even if the car has it's inadequencies).
Please take no offense to this #8.
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Keith Russell 9:56AM (8/04/2006)
@dc,
Hey, man, think of all the VW Microbuses with "Make Love, Not War" painted on the side, man. Of course they're gonna take Playboy over a Michael Bay movie, man.
@Howard Kerr,
Mellow out, dude.
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strangway 6:19PM (8/04/2006)
Europeans: Sex ok, violence not ok.
Americans: Sex bad, violence good.
How many Americans died of gun violence last year?
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Greg A. 9:20PM (8/04/2006)
Playboy is supposed to appeal to readers (women as well as men) who aspire to the "better things in life," or who already have them. Why would such a person settle for a VW Rabbit?
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BA 10:48PM (8/05/2006)
Because even if VW only sold ten rabbits, the ad campaign is building huge visibility for the brand. People see the ads on TV, it makes them smile on the back cover of Playboy, then they go to the dealership and get upsold to a Touareg or Phaeton.
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John T 1:56PM (8/09/2006)
I just bought the new Rabbit 2.5 3 weeks ago . I must say that I find it very nice car and with very appealing aesthetics. I live in the DFW metroplex and do quite a bit of driving on hiways and interstates. Mostly infact and I find the horsepower to be adequate for the type of driving i do mostly. I dont really drive on busy city streets that often and I enjoy the performance the Rabbit gives me on the open hiway. The handling on it is phenominal as well . If I had wanted to drop more money down I would have went with the GTI but I think that the new Rabbit is a close match and cheaper alternative to the GTI. I test drove pretty much every other hatchback in that price range and just had to go with the rabbit. Its priced like a toyota and drives like an audi .
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A-train 10:44PM (8/14/2006)
I just picked up a Rabbit the other day and I'm pretty happy with it. Most of the Rabbit's critics place it with the higher performance VWs and tend to forget that it's Volkwagen's cheapest car. Plenty of bang for the buck (keyless entry, 10 airbags, DRL, power everything, traction control, iPod compatible radio and that little badge from back in the day). The 150 hp I5 works fine and should last a long time. Comparing it to the 2.0 Turbo or the VR6 is apples to oranges. Realistically, a buyer eyeing a GTI wouldn't even glance at the Rabbit. I really wish people would stop flapping about the Rabbit's "unimpressive" and "uninspiring" power. It's a Rabbit for crying out loud. Pipe down and go drop another $7,000 on a GTI.
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William Wallace 11:15PM (8/14/2006)
I also just bought a Rabbit a month ago after looking at all of the alternatives including the GTI. It is superior to all of the others in many ways. It is better equiped in the 4 door version than its direct competiion as well as beating out many more expensive vehicles including the 3 series BMW. The styling and low drag coefficient also clobber the competion. The power deparment is another area of definite superiority. Yes, many have more HP at the expense of torque, but they are also porkier vehicles. Torque is much more useful than horsepower and the Rabbit has plenty. Really only slightly less than the turboed GTI. You cannot understand the importance of torque over horsepower unil you have owned a GMC 6.2L diesel truck.
There is far more to going fast than low 0 - 60 times. The car's biggest handicap is speed off the line. Once under power and moving, the torque can work to your advantage. Keeping at speed through the corners and the washes is faster in the end than slowing down and accelerating to the next obstacle. The car is loaded with go fast and stable goodies like ESP. It tracks straight under power and goes where it is told to easily. Wider gummy tires and suspension tweaks will help push it faster though.
Another important area of superiority of engine over the 2 L turbo is in maintinence. The 2 L belt driven cam reqires belt changes every 60 K the I or so if driven hard. This cost $500 to $600. The chain driven cam in the 2.5 L will last the life of the engine.
The Rabbit is a very well design and executed car. I would recommend it highly.
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Jason Mousseau 3:20AM (3/03/2007)
I just recently bought a Rabbit myself and so far I think it's a great car. I agree with some other folks here, it's a sturdy build, great performance and handling and gets me where I need to go. And all things considered, I don't think the gas mileage is that all that bad.
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