Volkswagen's new Super Bowl ad is betting a riff on the "every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings" line from the Christmas classic "It's a Wonderful Life" will translate into cash register bells ringing at dealerships. The 2014 spot's premise is that every time a VW hits 100,000 miles, a German engineer gets his wings.
The car maker unveiled for TODAY a full-length look at their upcoming Super Bowl ad, nearly a week ahead of the big game.
The ad then takes us inside the VW factory to see how comic and disruptive that would be if wings spontaneously sprouted from its employees bodies.
In the spot, an engineer gets his wings inside an active wind tunnel, launching him into a car's windshield as he helplessly cries "Ach neeeeeiiin," German for "uh oh!" At another point in the men's room, one guy sees the wings of a guy standing at a nearby urinal are bigger than his, which makes him depressed.
The kicker is that every 200,000 miles, a rainbow shoots out of a German engineer's butt. The ad chooses to imply that effect rather than render it with computer graphics.
VW's 2014 ad probably won't top the crowd-pleasing "The Force" ad from 2011. But it will probably tick off fewer people than its ad last year that had a Midwestern feigning an authentic Jamaican accent.
Contact Ben Popken via ben.popken@nbcuni.com, @bpopken, or benpopkenwrites.com.