Belinda Archer
Guardian

Friday February 18, 2000

The ad: This stunning car ad simply features a man on a "wakeboard" (a sort of monoski), waterskiing and doing various impressive tricks as he speeds across the sea. Instead of being towed by a motor-boat, however, he is being pulled by a car - an Audi A6 in fact. There is no music or dodgy voiceover or anything: the powerful live-action is enhanced by just the gentle sound of the rhythmically lapping waves. "Vorsprung durch Technik", it says coolly at the end.

The jargon: Without meaning to encourage folk to actually drive their Audis around in salt-water, this "demo" commercial is promoting the car's quattro four-wheel drive system, which basically means top road-holding (and that you can take corners really fast).

Personality: The bullseye target is successful, dynamic, ambitious etc young professionals, but this spot is not forensically focusing on them - it is aimed inclusively at all men and women, says agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, so you could be anyone... within reason.

Financial status: Audis are prestige cars, ranging in price from £18,000 to over £80,000, with the average costing around £25,000. Basically, therefore, you are earning rather more than the national average wage.

Telling lifestyle detail: Chances are you like snowboarding, climbing, wakeboarding even - in fact, any activity that is risky and stimulating. You also want a car that signals a more contemporary definition of post-millennial success than a BMW (80s Thatcherite materialism) or a Jaguar (60s old-boy networks).

Other relevant data: The wakeboarder depicted is a chap called Gavin Broadbent, who is New Zealand's wakeboarding champion. The ad was filmed in the Tasman Sea off the west coast of NZ, on a wide volcanic shelf which is just six inches deep.