We've seen some strange marketing campaigns from automakers before, but this one is just dumb. The folks in charge of marketing over at Volkswagen decided that they needed some hands-on advertising to push their little Polo, so they came up with large magnets that look like car dents to put on other people's cars. The idea is to show how tough the little Polo is.

Most of us get pissed off when we see a flyer for cheap oil changes on our windshield, so we can't imagine being too thrilled about someone slapping a magnet on our paint job. Call us crazy, but we probably wouldn't appreciate the adrenaline rush that comes with "Holy crap what happened to my ca... oh, it's just a magnet." Somehow we don't think that scaring the heck out of a car owner will entice him or her to drop $15k on a VW.

Besides, what message does this bone-headed marketing campaign really send for the Polo? Is it: "Polo: the steering is so bad, you'll have little control when you try to park." Or could it be: "Polo: the car everybody else will hate because it reminds them of the stupid magnet that got stuck on their car." We like the idea of a small, affordable, fuel-efficient VW, but we'd prefer people not touching our cars or sticking things to them, for that matter.

[Source: VW via The German Car Blog]