Love at first test drive

Rational car-buying research — specs, reviews, comparison tables — rarely survives contact with the actual driving experience. Citroën's campaign builds on that truth, reframing the test drive not as a sales step but as the emotional event that renders everything before it irrelevant. The film plays as a romantic comedy misdirection: a woman leaves a showroom visibly smitten, and the joke is that her feelings are for the car, not the charming salesman facilitating the encounter. Survivor's 'Is This Love' does the tonal work efficiently — familiar enough to trigger warmth, era-specific enough to feel playful rather than earnest. BETC Paris keeps the execution light, which is the right call. The insight doesn't need underlining. What distinguishes this beyond its charm is the strategic positioning embedded in the comedy: Citroën isn't leading with design language or performance credentials but with the sensory, embodied experience of being in one of their cars. For a brand whose equity sits in comfort and accessibility rather than aspiration, anchoring the campaign to feel over fantasy is disciplined brand thinking. The test drive as the product's best argument is an honest brief, and the execution is confident enough to let the joke land without over-explaining it.