Kim Jong Il ruins car ads

Over the past year, Volkswagen has released a series of excellent television advertisements, leading with a trio of wacky but hilarious spots which simultaneously lampoon stereotypes of Germans and the American "pimp my ride" car culture.

Next, VW got serious with a spot where the suddenness of a car crash is depicted in a way you'd never expect from a car commercial.

Most recently, to highlight their brand's "lack of ego," VW ran spots where owners of traditional luxury cars use mega-phones to scream their insecurities out their driver-side window.

Taken together it is impressive body of work by Crispin Porter. The VW ads are completely different from each other, but all equally unique and memorable when compared to the other ads on TV. Even better, I remember them as ads for VW.

My favorite ad of all-time takes place in a boardroom during a business meeting. Somebody suggests a way to solve a business related problem. It goes ignored. Then the boss makes the same suggestion but punctuates it with an authoritative hand gesture. The boardroom erupts in agreement. "You just said what I just said only you did this," the worker protests and tries to repeat the hand gesture." No I did this," the boss replies, mimicking the motion. Again the board room erupts in agreement.

CNBC ran the hand gesture ad every commercial break in 2001 and 2002. I was watching CNBC eight hours a day back then (not for pleasure) but was still amused every time the ad ran. Yet, I can't remember if it was an ad for IBM, Fedex, AT&T or UPS. I don't think I ever could.

Five years from now I'm sure I'll remember the VW ads as ads for VW. But I will also remember them for something else:

They sum up the developments of my thoughts on North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

A first KJI was wacky and fun (at least to someone who didn't live in North Korea;) He was the world's greatest golfer, he proposed a whole new way to look at the opera, he designed many of the better buildings in Pyongyang -- all the while finding the time to drive his people into grass eating poverty.

Suddenly, there was the stark and jolting realization this madman could be on his way to developing rocket technology that would allow him to strike the United States with a nuclear missile.

But, after seven years of reading stories just like this without anything happening KJI is beginning to seem like a guy who has leapt, Dr. Strangeglove style, on a theoretical nuclear missile because that's the best way to grab the world's attention, which he needs to deal with his insecurities.

I'm not exactly sure where I stand on Kim Jong Il today -- he could be a complete nut-job who would never attack the US or his Asian neighbors because that would be suicidal and he's having too much fun with his golf and his opera to want to die. But then again nut jobs do nutty things. Or it could all be a plea for attention; which would cast doubt upon whether his claims of developing nuclear material and pending missile tests are credible enough to deal with on even a diplomatic level.

Currently, the merits of these different scenarios are being weighed in the halls State Department, as well as in think tanks and editorial boards around the nation and world.

It is likely I will be the only one searching the next Volkswagen ad for the answer.