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Alfa Romeo Giulia QV Billboard at Frankfurt Airport is Tongue-in-Cheek OOH Advertising

Billboards and OOH (out-of-home) advertising have come a long way since the beginning of the 1900s. Nevermind the BMW vs. Audi vs. Mercedes-Benz advertising rivalry because Alfa Romeo just made things more complicated (and interesting) with a billboard of the Giulia at the Frankfurt airport.
Alfa Romeo Giulia QV Billboard at Frankfurt Airport 1 photo
Photo: Alfa Romeo Project 952 on Facebook
Mind you, the vehicle you can admire in the photograph above isn't your typical Giulia Tipo 952 compact executive sedan. We are in the presence of the QV, which stands for Quadrifoglio Verde. In plain English, that translates to "Here at Alfa Romeo, our engineers have a can of whoop-ass for the M3, RS4, and the C63 S. And that's no joke. It's a declaration of war."

The Italian company's latest product has the upper hand over its German competition on paper and a rumoured Nurburgring lap time of 7:43. But we're not buying into what the Italians are trying to sell us with words, not until we get behind the wheel of the Giulia QV and find out if it's as good as Alfa promises.

Nevertheless, we admire the marketing effort for two reasons. Number one – Alfa Romeo didn't boast in the billboard at hand that the BMW M3 should take notes. Number two – the placement of the billboard. Just think about it for a moment – the Frankfurt Motor Show is a few days away, and Alfa Romeo just wants Frankfurt airport travellers (and us journalists) to stop by the IAA and admire it. Well played.

Some say that opinions are like armpits because everyone has them and some of them stink. Our not-so-humble opinion is that anyone who claims the Giulia in QV form is a bastard of car design is either a hater or suffers from cataracts. Even the interior is a marvelous place to sit in. But let's be frank here: the 2016 Alfa Romeo Giulia QV's party piece is that 3-liter twin-turbo V6 hiding under its sculpted hood and the 510 horsepower channeled to the rear wheels. Active aerodynamics are on the Giulia QV menu as well.

For a vehicle that tips the scales at just 1,605 kilograms (3,540 lbs), the rear-wheel drive Alfa Romeo Giula QV promises a 0 to 100 km/h stint of 3.9 seconds thanks to the Ferrari know-how that went into it. Surely, an aspect that matters more to us drivers is how this car feels in the corners. According to Alfa, we should expect "the most direct steering on the market." Is that true? Nobody knows at the present moment...

Still, William Bernbach once said that "Advertising doesn't create a product advantage. It can only convey it."
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About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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