that danish bus commercial making the rounds

Buzzfeed calls it "the sexiest, coolest, most EPIC bus commercial ever," and adds: "If you don't like this, you don't like anything."  The commercial for Danish bus company Midttrafik brings all the cinematic cliches of our historical moment to bear on the problem of making the bus sexy.  If you're not fluent in Danish, hit the CC button at the bottom for English subtitles:

Over the top?  It may seem like a parody of a bus commercial, but it's at least as effective as a parody of contemporary cinematography.

9 Responses to that danish bus commercial making the rounds

  1. Lholcombe September 15, 2012 at 9:14 pm #

    Awesome. I wish people got that excited about riding the bus in real life.

  2. Andrew in Ezo September 16, 2012 at 3:07 am #

    All was missing was an aerial establishing shot `a la Jerry Bruckheimer.

  3. Jeffrey Bridgman September 16, 2012 at 6:50 am #

    It made me laugh 🙂
    If it can make people laugh, it might be good enough to give them some good will… maybe a little less frustration the next time they’re stopped waiting behind a bus letting people off and on (although that might not happen, as the commercial suggest they have bus lanes).

  4. Kenny September 16, 2012 at 10:07 am #

    Perhaps LA’s Metro should hire some local talent to do something like this once they get those lanes striped on Wilshire.

  5. Eric Doherty September 16, 2012 at 10:14 am #

    Love it. And I think it is best seen and titled as a parody of car ads. “If transit was advertised like a car”
    What it really shows is how ridiculous car, SUV and pickup ads are.

  6. cd September 16, 2012 at 10:39 pm #

    Nice.
    I grew up in a small city that didn’t have any transit system. I hadn’t managed to pass the drivers test either so my world was very small.
    When I was in my 20s I moved to larger city and discovered the bus system. It was so amazing. For a small price per month I could go anywhere. Also the social environment of people riding it was something new for me.
    So I can totally relate to this ad.

  7. Zoltán Connell September 17, 2012 at 10:49 am #

    “It is big and long”
    Not even trying to be subtle, then.

  8. Nate Wessel September 17, 2012 at 2:49 pm #

    I absolutely love this! Regardless of what the piece literally says of the bus, it indirectly shows a transit agency that is engaging, sarcastic, bold…dare I say personable? This is branding at it’s best.
    I wish my local agencies were even half so willing to take chances on marketing as this. If I see one more hesitant ad about saving gas money…

  9. Peter Parker September 19, 2012 at 6:25 am #

    Good imagery, but would have been good to mention a couple more service characteristics. Eg frequency if this is a saleable number (it’s approximately hourly for Route 223 which from the pictures is mainly a rural route)