How to Deal with Ego Emissions

Volkswagen says that everything and everyone exudes ego. What do you do if your ego emissions are too high?

We’re all tired of stale marketing and cliché commercials.

But now and again a brilliant marketing campaign comes along that captures people’s curiosity or tickles their funny bone and it lands in the pop culture spotlight.

Where’s the beef?

Tastes great, less filling.

Mean Joe Green throws the football jersey at the little kid.

This year’s Mac vs. PC television spots.

Last year, a classic marketing campaign went sadly under the radar. At a time when “going green” and image consciousness seemed to peak in the American ethos,

Volkswagen combined these two streams into a satirical pitch for its cars.

The Ego Emissions Index.

The Ego Emissions Index is a 1 to 100 rating scale that assigns an ego emission rating (“EE”) to almost anything you can imagine.

Everything you can imagine. Low EE items include dirt (18 EE), nose hair (13 EE), a butter churn (9 EE) and a paper clip (1 EE).

On the high end, you have your saber-toothed tiger at an EE of 88....