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Porsche Super Bowl Commercial

I haven't posted in a few years, but the Porsche Super Bowl commercial awoke me from my slumber.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sXWVxRr0g

I almost fell over when I saw it. That scene as they zoom through the half-timbered town was filmed in Heppenheim, which is a beautiful town south of Frankfurt that I loved and recommended countless times on this website. It has everything you might want from a stereotypical German town : easily accessible (by rail or car) location from a major port of entry, a gorgeous old Altstadt, frequent festivals, several great restaurants, a castle overlooking the town, vineyards, a beautiful church and countless hiking opportunities nearby. And it has none of the trinket shops and mobs of tour buses that descend on Rothenburg daily.

Just excited to see Heppenheim prominently featured on American TV, and not some other more obvious location.

BTW: The other locations I could identify on this commercial are Heidelberg (do Rickniks still avoid this awesome city?), and Stuttgart. I'm not sure where the dam scene was filmed, but I think it's either in the Black Forest or somewhere in northern Hessen or Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Posted by
4540 posts

How'd I miss that commercial during the SuperBowl? The commercials are why I had it on! (Yes, I know I live in the Bay Area and should be a 49'ers fan: I'm from Denver...the Broncos.)

The images of Heppenheim look lovely! I know I'll be stopping in Frankfurt again on one of my wish list trips. Heppenheim looks like a great little stopover, thanks for pointing it out!

Posted by
2085 posts

This commercial had a real bad feedback in Germany - of course produced for the USA.

It transports a picture of Germany following the mistaken "Autobahn is a race track" reputation; also very unsocial and irresponsible.

Posted by
980 posts

That is the Schwarzenbach dam. I certainly don't interpret this as "Autobahn is a race track", more of "Porsches are fun cars and fun people like to do fun things with them". The only reason this is set in Germany is that makes it a logical way for a group of people to get access to all these famous cars.

DJ

Posted by
12040 posts

Yeah, I didn't get the impression that this commercial meant "Come to Germany and drive like a maniac" at all. Simply a mini-heist movie set in the automobile's home country.

Heck, there's even a "making-of" video that's about 10 times longer than the actual commercial:

https://www.motor1.com/news/396325/porsche-super-bowl-ad-bts/

I'm probably going on more than I should about this commercial, but it was just such a pleasant surprise to see Heppenheim of all places, a town that I could see every day when I looked out my window when I lived in Germany, make an appearance during the Super Bowl.

Posted by
299 posts

Thank you for posting the locations! The commercial most definitely caught my eye for that very reason, not sure I could have recalled the sponsor had you not mentioned it though, lol ... but I sure do have visuals in my mind of the wonderful locations ... with a few cars flitting about.

Posted by
19645 posts

I did not recognize the town, since I have never been there, but first thought was, "looks like any one of a thousand Fachwerk towns in Germany".

Posted by
12040 posts

I did not recognize the town, since I have never been there, but first thought was, "looks like any one of a thousand Fachwerk towns in Germany"

I would rate Heppenheim maybe in the top 20. Taste is subjective, but I give it bonuses for the Atlstadt being somewhat larger than average, the buildings being a bit more grand, the Gründerzeit and Jugendstil neighborhoods outside the Fachwerk core, the very scenic location nestled at the foot of the Odenwald mountains, the view of the castle from the Markt (and vice-versa), the local wine, and the fact that it's so easy to reach from the airport that most visitors to Germany will arrive from. And also because I lived very close by during a particularly happy period of my life, I probably view it with a certain degree of nostalgia.