Luxury auto company Jaguar‘s recent radical revamp of its classic brand with a new “woke” ad raised quite a few eyebrows across the internet. The long list of those who were not impressed with the ad includes Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “Do you sell cars?” Elon Musk wrote mockingly in a reply to the ad. Elon Musk’s response went as viral as the ad.
Just days after Musk has shared another meme ad of another auto company Aston Martin.The ad that reportedly went wildly viral in 2013 is actually a fake ad that shows a semi-naked woman with one knee raised up to the kitchen counter seemingly cooking something. In a statement, Aston Martin confirmed that the ad was fake.
What Elon Musk wrote on the ad with ‘Playboy photo’
Sharing the Aston Martin’s fake ad on X, Musk termed it ‘meme ad’ and added that there was a vague possibility that it could have been a real one as well. “Best fake ad ever 😂 This meme ad was made in 2013 when it was actually vaguely possible that it might be real,” he wrote.
The ‘fake ad’ of Aston Martin’s pre-owned cars shared by Musk has a photo which is said to be from adult magazine Playboy’s Germany edition. The copy on the ad reads: “You know you’re not the first, but do you really care?”
The ad is reported to have gone wildly viral on Facebook and other social media platforms in the year 2013.
The story behind the fake Ashton Martin ad
The Aston Martin ad was fake as is clear by the spelling mistake in ad. Someone is said to have doctored a real Ashton Martin as in Photoshop and posted this online. After which it went viral, thanks to the photo from Playboy. An important cue on it being a fake ad is the typo: it says “PRE OWED” instead of “PRE OWNED”.
Also, a website with the URL — ‘https://www.aston-martin.com/’ — shares the story about the viral ad. The report reveals that a quick search on “Google Images shows that the photo was taken from the January 2012 issue of Playboy Germany, showing Dutch Playmate Rosanne Jongenelen.”
The page does not have the original ad image, but a sketch. As the author claims he had to remove the original photo of the ad after getting an email from Aston Martin’s lawyers. Also, Playboy Netherlands too threatened him with lawsuit.
As for the tagline on the fake ad (You know you’re not the first, but do you really care?”), it too was not original either. The same tagline was used in 2008 by BMW to advertise their Premium Selection.