For starters, there's that oh-so-tired slogan. If ever a dull and unimaginative tag-line has been dragged kicking and screaming through the decades, it has to be that one. Vorsprung Durch Technik - 'Progress Through Technology'. Well, whoopy-do! When you know what it means, it sort of takes the shine off. Dull, dull and dull.
My problem is not with the slogan. If they want to plug their shiny gas guzzlers with civil service styled tag-lines, well that's up to them. It doesn't excite me and frankly, I don't care. My problem with Audi is the eerie car horn sound they use at the end of some of their TV ads. I know that I am not alone in thinking this - there have been comments to this effect all over the interwebs - but this sound is reminiscent of the chilling noise a car makes as it lies crashed into a ditch.
Have a listen for yourself. If you don't want to sit through the visual pot-pourri, just click on the video's progress bar and skip to the last ten seconds or so. You're not missing much before that - just visual back-slappy stuff that ordinary mortals shrug at with bored indifference - and which happens to be just an over-elaborate effort to present that slogan anyway (seriously - that's all!). Skip the guff and still be in time to enjoy the wrapped-around-the-lampost drunken-driver smashed-up-car noise.
Who at Audi really thought that this chilling sound was a great way to sell their cars? To me, it is plain baffling. It visually conjures up a slow sweep across the dashboard - fine at first, and then you notice the glass. The horn grows louder as we pan towards the driver, slumped over the wheel, blood dripping from multiple lacerations to the face, the remains of the airbag lying shrivelled and bloody in the lap of the unfortunate Audi owner.
I mean, listen to that horn. He has so obviously crashed. What a shame he drove an Audi, eh?
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