Audi Pits Spock Against Spock
Audi is a couple months late with its newest viral ad: this thing would have swept the Super Bowl.
Remember The Force, the adorably geeky ad featuring a pint-sized Darth Vader? It delighted Super Bowl ad watchers two years ago. Audi may have just topped it with an ad that cleverly capitalizes on this week’s release of Star Trek Into Darkness.
For those of you who haven’t kept your geek cred up to date, the film series is a reimagining of the original television series—something of an alternate universe take on the subject matter. Leonard Nimoy, the original series’ Spock, popped up in the first film to offer some advice to his new series counterpart, played by Zachary Quinto. This has provided fans with no end of fuel for debates: not so much whether this new Spock is better than the old Spock, but whether he even has a shot at living up to the role.
Audi pulls that competition out of the film and into the real world, where Quinto struggles to keep up with Nimoy on every front—except in his choice of vehicle. The ad is chock-full of Trek references, some overplayed for laughs and others refreshingly natural. Best of all is a brief diversion to one of Nimoy’s unintentional viral hits, The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins.
Despite the many, many references, however, the ad never mentions Star Trek or Spock. All this, and no licensing required? Fascinating.
