Video: Fantastic Volkswagen Commercial

I work in advertising.  I love cars.  When the two of my passions meet, its great.  Moreover, when its done right, it’s like a bacon flavored ice cream: the perfect balance of two amazing things to make one awesomely fantastic thing.  

VW: "We pluck the lemons so you get the plums

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To start, I have chosen a spot from a company that really seems to do automotive advertising right, and has done for quite some time: Volkswagen.  Consistently since the dawn of their first print ads (shown right, Credit: DDB), they have portrayed their cars in a fun and unique way, which has given the brand a very distinct personality.  This in turn has led them down a very successful path, one filled with staggering sales numbers and a slew of large acquisitions.  Now, I’m not going to say that the advertising is solely responsible for their success because we all know that good advertising will make a crap product fail faster.  Truth be told, the lion share of Volkswagens success is attributable to their management, engineering and quality, but the rest of is because of excellent marketing - a portion of which is advertising.

I came across the spot posted below, once of VW's more recent ads and think it’s fantastic, take a look……

First, credit to Deutsch LA and the N.A. Marketing team at VW because this is just a fantastically executed piece.  Not only is it fun and engaging but it takes an attribute that is certainly not that unique in the automotive industry—keyless access—and injects a bit of that VW personality.  Given the clutter (i.e. amount of advertising you see each day), in this segment and the industry as a whole, it can be challenging to develop communications that achieve both branded AND functional message recall.  Meaning that its really tough to get people to remember that the car ad they had seen was for Volkswagen AND about their keyless entry system.  That, ladies and gents, is successful advertising. But like their success, the spot above wasn’t a fluke, or a one hit wonder.  As I mentioned, they have consistently put out great advertising (with a few lulls here and there).  

I close with a few of my favorite VW ads below for your viewing pleasure.   As always, thoughts are welcomed.