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The availability of the Internet as a tool to spread information quickly, cheaply, and (mostly) anonymously has enabled the advent of viral marketing: buzz-generating advertisements whose content is often unsuitable for traditional media (such as television) and is therefore distributed through unofficial channels such as social media and e-mail forwards. Viral ads may not be obvious about what product they're promoting, or even obvious as advertisements at all. Companies often try to obscure the connections between themselves and their viral ads, sometimes claiming that promotions were unauthorized or accidentally released. Though this technique may be effective in generating publicity, it can also backfire: If someone does indeed produce an unauthorized viral ad that creates negative publicity for the business it supposedly promotes, how can a company prove it wasn't behind it? This was the dilemma faced by Volkswagen in 2005 regarding a viral ad seemingly calculated to offend as many human beings as possible. The spot begins with a motorist leaving his house and hopping into his Volkswagen Polo — a motorist with a distinctly Middle Eastern appearance who sports a black-and-white checkered kaffiyeh like the one commonly associated in the public mind with the late Palestinian chairman Yasser Arafat (and thus, by extension, with terrorists and suicide bombers). After a short jaunt, the driver pulls up in front of a busy restaurant with curbside seating (as women holding babies, talking on cellphones, and just strolling down the street flash by in the background), pulls out a detonator, and depresses the button. Rather than causing widespread death and destruction, however, the muffled blast is completely contained by the car, leading to the end slogan: 'Polo. Small but tough': So just who produced this offensive spot? The advertisement didn't appear to be a spoof put together by some rogue amateur filmmakers, as its production values (e.g., shot on 35mm film, probably at a cost in the tens of thousands of dollars) would indicate, but Paul Buckett, a Volkswagen spokesman, denied that the automobile manufacturer had anything to do with it: According to the UK newspaper The Guardian, the suicide bomber spot was created by the Lee and Dan team, a British pair who have produced a number of other advertisements (including virals) known for their quirkiness. The duo maintained that the clip was a self-promotional work not intended for public viewing: Others quoted by the Guardian concurred with the self-promotional nature of the spot, if not necessarily about its release being an accident: On 26 January 2004, the Guardian reported they had located the director of the clip, Stuart Fryer, who disputed Lee and Dan's claim its production had cost £40,000 and affirmed that the spot was not meant for public viewing: Volkswagen also announced they would be initiating legal action against the video's creators (although nothing more was reported about the case, so we assume the idea of pursuing a lawsuit was quietly dropped):
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