Volkswagen has been one of the most loved brands in the USA for a long time, but it was still just a niche player. So, while Volkswagen literally meant “the people’s car,” it had really just become a car for college kids. And hippies. It was time for it to claim it’s rightful place as a car for ALL the people.
So we reintroduced Volkswagen in the USA with a spokescar—a pristinely restored black 1964 VW Beetle who we named “Max.” Because who knows more about what the people want than the most loved car in the world.
In the TV ads, Max speaks with a German accent (as voiced by actor Bronson Pinchot) and plays a talk-show host. He conducts offbeat interviews with an eclectic batch of celebrities, including supermodel Heidi Klum, Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy, and David Hasselhoff of Baywatch fame. Every person we chose has a unique take on something we want to say about VW.
Volkswagen. It’s what the people want.
Volkswagen_ Live Polling Site
The backbone of the It's what the people want campaign was a national polling effort that utilized user-generated content, in the form of voters' responses collected through a mobile polling site and microsite.
Contextualized Banners. Embeddable Polls. Times Square OOH. Polling results were broadcast through the hub site, vw.com/whatthepeoplewant, as well as through contextualized banners, embeddable polls, customizable t-shirts and an interactive Times Square billboard—using new technology created specifically for the campaign.
Users were encouraged to submit their own polls as well. If enough people agreed with their poll, it became “what the people want.” It could then be seen on web banners, t-shirts and even a billboard in Times Square.
Times Square Live Interactivity. Our campaign was also the first to use the ABC SuperSign’s “live interactivity” technology in Times Square, which allowed users to vote on polls in real time with their mobile devices.
All banners used an advanced form of keyword targeting that matched webpage articles with relevant polls from the database in real time—making it the first ever user-generated banner campaign to be served contextually.
Total polling votes passed 3 million. What's more, Volkswagen saw a 38% increase in test drives. What recession?
