SPIRITO DI PUNTO COMMERCIAL ON THE FORECOURT

FIAT Auto UK’s new Spirito di Punto TV commercial had its first national showing on Boxing Day, supported by press and online activity, as part of a £4 million national advertising burst.
The promotion is designed to highlight Punto’s fun and feisty personality, so it continues to utilise the observation that cars and driving often result in robust exchanges between the sexes.
In the TV commercial, a young couple are seen pulling into a petrol station. The girl stops the car, accompanied by the familiar instrumental sound track. Her boyfriend acts out the lyrics of a song as if they are the actual words he would choose to spark controversy, but he appears as if he’s totally unaware that they are part of a song. He’s just passionate about how he feels, and in his view, they’re the words that express how he’s feeling.
His girlfriend, however, thinks he’s lost the plot. So she decides to play a little game with him, locking him out of the car when he returns from paying for the petrol, and moving the car away as if she is going to leave him on the forecourt. But she softens and lets him in to cut short his woeful cries of ‘Don’t You Want Me Baby?’.
The press advertising material uses this latter lyric as a headline referring to the car - the inference being that customers would surely want something as good looking as the Punto, packed with specification, and available with a finance plan to suit their budget.
The campaign was written by Trevor Webb and Stephen Campbell, and directed by Jeff Stark through Stark Productions. Press photography was by Anton Watts, and all media was planned and brought about by Media Vest. (CD)