Competitive Auto Ads - Do they work?

Over the weekend I saw a couple of the new TV spots for Audi. These new ads are directly competitive with Lexus, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

The VP of Marketing for Audi - Scott Keogh says that the Olympics are the right venue for competitive ads because "First and foremost, the Olympics is the spirit of competition; it's about who wins and who doesn't."

Of the two ads I saw both were produced to high standards and I agree with Scott on the placement of the ads. Good strategy to put them in a competitive environment.

However, in the same telecast I saw a spot for BMW that talks about the "Joy of . . ." while minimizing their long-time slogan of "The Ultimate Driving Machine". While I did feel that the BMW concept was somewhat similar in tone to the current Nissan campaign it did make me feel better about the BMW brand than the Audi spots made me feel about their brand.

In this case for me while the Audi ads are well done - they don't provide me with a positive emotional attachment to their car badge. Tthe BMW spot gave me some emotional triggers that made me feel good about this brand.

So in this case the Audi strategy of being front on competitive was just not working for me given that BMW was running a much more positive approach in the same program.

BMW is the winner to me in this competitive battle. What do you think?