RENAULT has launched a new television and digital advertisement to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of its most popular models, the Clio light hatch, tugging at heart strings with an emotional story.

However, the emotion was not attached to the little car but to the storyline that showed a 30-year romance between two women, starting as childhood friends as passengers in an original Clio and ending with the clip showing the latest iteration.

Renault says the theme “reminds us of what’s changed in the culture since 1990, but also that cars can be our emotional companions on life’s journey”.

The TVC opens in the year of the first generation of the Clio and shows young British girl Gemma going on holiday with a family in France who, naturally, own a Clio.

The French family has a daughter of similar age and the two young girls become friends with the background second-generation Clio marking the years.

As a backdrop, Renault has chosen the soundtrack of Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’, sung by a female vocalist.

The next scene is the French girl visiting Gemma in the UK, marking the time again with a later model Clio in blue.

Then time moves on again, showing the French girl being married, the disappointment of Gemma, and another time movement as the pair reunite in the current-generation Clio, in orange.

The tagline is: “The All-New Renault Clio: 30 years in the making.”

The TVC shook the UK market with a variety of homophobic Twitter responses and an equally strident defence of the commercial.

Renault UK marketing director Adam Wood, responding to questions by The Independent, said: “We wanted to humanise and celebrate, not just 30 years of progress of the Renault Clio, but also the progress made within culture, society and life in that time.”

Executive creative director at ad agency Publicis Poke, Dave Monk, said in the same article: “Britain has had a love affair with the Renault Clio since the ’90s halcyon days of Papa and Nicole and wind-up windows.

“Many things have changed in those 30 years. While technology, design, attitudes and culture will always shift and change, one thing will always stay the same as long as humans have hearts: the love story.

“This is a simple and universal tale of two souls on their own enduring journey of life, love and passion.”

Renault Australia said the ad is not planned to run on Australian television but it is investigating options for it to appear on selected digital channels.

By Neil Dowling