Diesel Ads –
Commitment To Irony

Diesel always present themselves as a brand of the future stranded in the present. In their penultimate campaign, GLOBAL WARMING READY, they perfectly captured the combination of greed, complacency and blind habit that make continued global climate change a virtual certainty. In one spot, a desperate looking girl accelerates away from a submerged London in a speed boat loaded down with shopping bags, obsessed with bargain hunting apparently even after her plutocratic capital has been engulfed in floods. In another a man and woman play out a scene of exquisite ambiguity. A couple lie stranded on the roof of a skyscraper set in what looks like Manhattan, surrounded by flood water. The female model pours water into her male friend's mouth which he, bare chested, gleefully savours. On the one hand there is great tenderness in their gaze. On the other hand there is the callousness of using fresh water as part of foreplay in a world deprived of it. Diesel thus hedge their bets by alluding to a topic whilst ultimately washing their hands of it. This ironic brand has cleverly attuned itself to today's conflicted youth. They build complicity by taking a subtle swipe at the bandwagon-ism of 'greenwashing' brands whilst conceding they themselves are powerless to affect the planet's destiny. Diesel pose as culture jammers offering figments of philosophy (this time as eco-warriors) whilst snatching cool mind share.