Is there anything more stupid, manipulative and cynical than Volkswagen's new "punch someone when you see a VW" TV campaign?

Well, sure. 

We can start with every statement by BP's CEO.

And include pretty much anything said by a Republican spokesman about President Obama.

But in an irritating miniscule way, sort of like a metaphysical mosquito bite, VW's attempt to create a product game, i.e., punch someone on the shoulder when you see a VW, is amazingly stupid,  depressively manipulative and an almost slanderous bit of Germanic stereotyping. 

("Ho Ho Ho Hah Hah Hah -- I punch someone and then I put on my lederhosen and go hiking in the hills as a part of the Happy Wanderer Gemutlichkeit society, hitting Jews and Gypsies and Trade Unionists with my staff.)



The one I've been seeing lately is two men -- security staff? -- watching an underground parking lot via closed-circuit monitors from in a glassed-in booth
And one is a big beefy blonde fellow.
And he's punching a short, somewhat swarthy Hispanic-looking man.

So, he says:

"Ho-ho-ho -- How do you like it?
 I punch you when I see a new VW.
Twice for having denied it was a VW."

To which I can only say --

"How do you like THIS? I kick people in the balls when they hit me. 
Twice when they're doing it because some ad agency account exec is trying to sell cars.
And one more -- a really hard full swing NFL-style kickoff kick when the campaign is re-branding them back to their  original incarnation as Hitler's People's Car."