Mini Forgets Where They Parked

Mini/BMW has always used their European image as a marketing ploy and in this commercial the trend continues to be the same. It wouldn't have been as cool if these cars had US license plates when we could instead see these cars in their true European form with the bland looking Euro plates that people in the US think are cool because they're different. (For the record, Euro plates are definitely lame...the variation in between countries' plates in the EU is so minimal it's hard to tell what country the plate is from! How are you supposed to play the license plate game?! Clearly whoever designed these plates has never been on a road trip...do they go on road trips in Europe? Maybe they don't.)

So obviously we're witnessing this trio driving around in this cool Euro garage (I'm sure European parking garages are 'cooler' than US ones for some dumb reason too) looking for a 'cool' Euro parking space to a park in....so let's check the sign to see where there's parking available. WAIT........METROPLEX PARKING?! Is that what the sign says?! Where the hell are we?! All the other signs are in another language! (I couldn't decipher what language the signs are in, but let's agree it isn't English.)

I don't understand why the parking sign couldn't have been in the other language as well. Given the context of the commercial, showing the board lit up with the numbers on it is enough to imply the purpose of the sign, right? And anyone who is sophisticated enough to pursue the Euro image in buying a Mini surely is someone hip who frequents a metroplex with a parking garage that has a similar parking kiosk that tells you where the empty spots are....right?

While we're at it, one my biggest pet peeves in car commercials is the omnipresent disclaimer that always mentions the commercial was shot on a "closed course." Why do we have to call it a course? I'd say at best 2% of car commercials are shot on an actual course. Since when is a parking garage a course? Throw some cones in there for a slalom and we can call it course and I won't object. Until then, can we say 'controlled environment' or just omit the part about it being a closed course and just say they're professional drivers?

Oh yeah, and the part at the end with the old lady parking her powerchair in the parking spot is stupid and unrealistic. Are you telling me she drove that chair up 5 stories to park it in a parking garage? Please.