Volkswagen pulls "jumper" ad from TV

From AdWeek:

Volkswagen today said it would pull a 30-second TV spot called "Jumper," which had drawn criticism from suicide prevention groups.

The ad, by MDC Partners' Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, shows a man who stands on a building ledge, contemplating suicide. He abandons the notion after being informed that there are three VW models for under $17,000....

The commercial was decried by several groups, including the Suicide Prevention Action Network, National Alliance on Mental Illness, American Psychiatric Association, Mental Health America and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Those organizations claimed the spot is insensitive to depressed and suicidal people.

"We commend [VW] for their actions" in pulling the ad, said Robert Gebbia, executive director of the AFSP. "We need to speak out when we're not happy, but we also need to say thank you when companies do the right thing."

The move follows General Motors' decision last Friday to edit a spot by IPG's Deutsch/LA that showed a despairing assembly line robot that dreams of flinging itself off a bridge. Following an outcry by advocacy groups, the spot, which aired on the Super Bowl, was pulled from GM Web sites and the company agreed to recast the commercial's finale. A retooled "Robot" spot will air by month's end.

The video of the VW ad is available at the first link above, for now. It's been posted and removed from YouTube a couple of times, so it may not be available to view and judge for yourself for very long.

Visual and aural description:

Somber music. An unshaven man of perhaps 35 stands at the edge of an urban rooftop, the grey city all around in the distance, and hollers to a crowd in the street below: "There's no affordable housing! You think I wanted high taxes or global warming? Reality tv? I don't even know my neighbors." As he speaks a policeman raises a bullhorn to respond, but lowers it as he listens to the man.

Then a shiny silver VW zips up and honks. The driver leans out the window of the car and shouts up: "Three V-dubs for under $17,000!"

The man barely hesitates, then says, with a little stutter, "I'm comin'-- I'm coming down. I'm coming down." He turns to hop off the ledge to the safer space of the roof as the ad ends with swelling music and a separate picture of the three VW models, tires screeching, lining up in a row.

Update: Well, it's February 22 today and I've seen this ad twice late in the evening on the cable channel Spike in the last few days.