ABSTRACT
LV’s commercial imagery is worthy of scrutiny precisely because, in Lefebvre’s terms, ‘the language of things is as useful for lying as it is for telling the truth. By seizing the opportunity ‘to inject some positive emotion into communications’, LV and its creative partners sought to imply that insuring a car is not financial obligation, but act of love, thereby rethreading the economic and cultural relationships that entwine car ownership with Western society. The degree to which the development of an independent auto industry was valued by certain governments can be understood by the legislation passed to encourage local production. Setting aside the explicit reading of LV’s commercials in terms of the automobile as a consumerist object, traces of South Africa’s automotive and political history can be discovered. The title of long-running Canadian sketch show This Hour Has 22 Minutes mocks the subservience of television programming to commercials, even on a public network such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
