Challenge

Research shows that innovation is becoming an important driver in brand preference within automotive. After hygiene elements such as ‘quality’ and ‘price’, ‘innovation’ is the most important factor in predicting brand preference. Although the newest generation of Volkswagens is full of innovation, the brand is traditionally perceived as ‘solid’ and ‘reliable’. How can we improve the perception of the brand value ‘innovation’ by showcasing all innovation in the newest generation Volkswagen, but without losing the human character that Volkswagen has established throughout the years? How can we humanize innovation? Brief: present Volkswagen as an innovative car brand, without losing the brand’s human touch and increase traffic to the dealership for all new VW-models.

Strategy 

Research shows that most consumers aren’t familiar with names as ‘Traffic Jam Assist’ or ‘Lane Assist’ at all. There were even a few respondents who think of electric windows if you ask them about innovation. Insight: Consumers don’t expect unnecessary bells and whistles from VW. Instead, they expect proven, useful and relevant innovation. Strategy: instead of focussing on the technology behind all innovations, we focus on the effect their use creates.

Solution

In the campaign we see a little boy, arriving at a birthday party dressed in a Volkswagen-suit. He impresses his peers with automatic lighting after the birthday girl blows out the candles, he prevents someone from tripping due to pedestrian recognition, and easily parks backwards besides the birthday girl. To stimulate traffic and test drives, the Robo-suit was made available at the dealership. With the suit comes an app, which lets your kid simulate all innovations available in a Volkswagen (oh, and we included car sounds to make sure we got their parents attention). The campaign was launched with a long film on national television, which we then redistributed in shorter versions, all focussing on one of the features. In online video, we matched every feature to a specific offer. The 20.000 Robo-suits with accompanying app were introduced via social, supported with how-to videos, influencer content and newsletters to make sure we got the right prospects to the dealership. Within only a few days, all 20.000 suits we’re picked up and people spontaneously started to use #Robopak. After multiple request from parents, we produced a selection of adult-sized suits too, and created new social content out of this.

Results

After the campaign, Volkswagen claimed the #1 spot on brand value ‘Innovation’, while the competition also communicated about innovation all year. After-campaign research shows this is actually a direct result of the campaign. 88% of people who have seen one or more elements of the campaign, think Volkswagen is more innovative than before. Although we focussed on innovation, Volkswagen managed to also grow in their traditional brand values ‘reliable’ and ‘sympathetic’. All 20.000 suits are picked up within the first week, and during the whole campaign dealer traffic is 62% higher than normally.