LONDON — The new Citroën DS3 , which represents the rebirth of an iconic French nameplate in supermini form, is being promoted with the help of two even larger icons: John Lennon and Marilyn Monroe. A pair of TV commercials for the DS3, being shown in the U.K., use clips of interviews with the two long-deceased stars talking about why nostalgia is overrated.
It's an interesting way to approach marketing for a car named DS. The initials, pronounced in French, are déesse, the French word for "goddess," and the original has a star quality and a following in Europe nearly as fanatical as the fans of the late Lennon and Monroe.
One of the 30-second ads shows a bespectacled Lennon, circa late 1970s, saying, "Why all this nostalgia? ...Start something new. Live your live now." The Monroe commercial shows her saying, "You should create your own icons and way of life, because nostalgia isn't glamorous...live your life now."
The DS3 went on sale in the U.K. on Monday. The ads are up on YouTube and are included below.
Inside Line says: An anti-nostalgia campaign digging deeply into the nostalgia sector of the public psyche? Weird...or perhaps brilliant. — Laura Sky Brown, Correspondent
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