The Volkswagen AD

Dt: 11 Sep 2012

So after almost one year another there is yet another innovative ad from Volkswagen.This time they attached a vibrating device which uses the concept of a photo diode to create the energy for the vibrations .

Dubbed as ‘Feel the shiver of excitement?’, the new campaign promotes the recently upgraded variants of the Polo and Vento which feature new headlights with black bezels, new alloy wheels, leather upholstery, a navigation system, reversing camera, Bluetooth phone pairing and steering-mounted controls. 

It fails in comparison to the talking newspaper ad though which literally became the talk of the town.But anyways its good to see some innovation if not in the cars then at least in the ads.

 

The Talking Newspaper AD -Volkswagen

Source :  THE ECONOMIC TIMES -- article

NEW DELHI | MUMBAI: Volkswagen’s advertisement for its Vento sedan has become the talk of the town, literally and figuratively. On Tuesday(September 21,2010), readers of The Times of India in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai woke up to the surprise of their newspaper ‘speaking’ to them about the Vento, the first ever advertising campaign of this type in the world. On social networking sites and among media professionals, the starkly different advertisement has drawn excited comment for its innovativeness and potential to become a trendsetter. 

The ‘talking’ advertisement — an audio rendering of the print commercial — was made possible by a light-sensitive device weighing just a few grams and pasted on the final page of the paper’s special 10-page section. It was carried in some 2.2 million copies. 



Volkswagen, no stranger to unconventional advertising, said the aim was to do something innovative to help raise awareness of the brand and drive traffic to showrooms. In November last year, the German ran its ‘Roadblocked’ campaign in The Times of India, filling up all advertising space in the paper with its own ads and blocking out all others.

Lutz Kothe, head of marketing at Volkswagen India, credited his 14-year-old niece Beatrix Madersbacher for giving him the idea of a ‘talking’ advertisement when he was on a business trip to Munich.

"My niece sketched the idea on paper, sealed it and asked me to open it in Mumbai, where I stay," he said.

Back in Mumbai, Mr Kothe shared the idea with his creative and media team to convert the teenager’s idea into an iPod-sized device embedded with a chip, a speaker and batteries to last for 140 minutes. Made at a Volkswagen plant in China, about 2.5 million of these devices were distributed with The Times of India and The Hindu.

“Was wondering if the walls were speaking, when I opened the TOI today.. really unique audio ad by VW!! Das cool!”, Vanessa from Chennai wrote on Twitter.

Bhaskar Das, executive president of The Times of India Group, described the advertisement as an innovation in co-creation that makes a statement for not just Times of India, but the entire print media.

“It tells you that even as static a medium as print can deliver and that if there’s a great idea, print media has no constraint in execution.”

The advertisement needed almost six months of groundwork. Volkswagen, media agency MediaCom and The Times of India worked together to source the chips, paste them on 2.2 million copies, create the edition and distribute the copies on time. Volkswagen and The Times of India group declined to provide financial details.

Media communications group Mudra’s chief creative officer Bobby Pawar was of the view that the fact that there was a chip in the paper was not the only innovation. “We wanted to give voice to the passion of the people who create the car in a media that has no voice.”

MediaCom MD Divya Gururaj said Volkswagen is a modest spender compared to competition and unconventional methods help it stand out.

“When we launched the brand, awareness was very low. Competition like Maruti, Tata, Hyundai outshouted us by far. In such a scenario, we had the option of following the norm and doing regular full-page/half-page ads or doing something completely radical. Our strategy to be innovative has worked,” she said. 

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The audio in the ad:

"Best in class German engineering is here. The new Volkswagen Vento.Built with great care and highly innovative features.Perhaps thats why it breaks the heart of our engineers to watch it drive away.The new Volkswagen Vento.Crafted with so much passion its hard to let it go.Volkswagen .Das Auto"

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And whats better its still playing.Using a simple photo diode and weighing so less it is an exciting and innovative market strategy.The photo diode acts like a solar cell converting light energy into current and voltage.

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Public Reaction:

Whilst some people were bemused by the ad there were others who were literally scared by a small black box in the newspaper continuosly speaking some words.And with the latest terrorist threats going around some felt that it was a small timer bomb which was ticking in their morning paper. :-)

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NEW INDIAN ADVERTISEMENTS 2009

With the IPL Season2 in full flow, its once again a time for brands to get noticed via new advertisement strategies which captivate the minds of viewers. Being an ardent cricket fan myself and with the strategic break introduced mid innings I have inadvertently ended up noticing quite a few new ad campaigns this season.

The Indian ad agencies have come up a long way in the past few years and amaze us with the various concepts that they use . Lets have a look at a few that have become extremely popular this year.

• Election ads
  

With the election season in full flow the most prominent ad on TV is of the two major parties in India .While NDA's 'India Shining' campaign backfired on them in the last assembly elections, Congress's Aam Aadmi campaign did the trick for them.But this year they have come back with two new tag lines targeting the Indian voters.
Congress-with 'Aam Aadmi ke badte kadam har kadam pe Bharath buland' has once again gone with the aam aadmi .
BJP - with 'Nidar neta Chunenge hum Faislo me ho jiske dum' has taken a dig once again at Congress' weak leadership issue ,this season.

• VODAFONE robots (Apparently they are called ZooZoos)
  

When Vodafone took over Hutch's stake in the mobile service provider company it had a lot to prove. Today Vodafone has managed to have its own identity in India thanks to its strong brand canvassing and great network and good offers for both prepaid and postpaid customer base.But as far as ad campaigns were concerned Vodafone had a tough choice to make , to either continue with Hutch's famous Dog or to create its own new brand ambassador.The company decided to continue with the Pup(Pug) for its Vodafone help campaign which became very popular.
But nowadays the company has hit a new ad campaign featuring small bot like creatures canvassing various services provided by the company.Seems like finally Vodafone has got a new brand ambassador.There is this one ad canvassing the phone contact backup service ....u just have to look at each of the bots (zoozoos) playing around when in the queue ,each having a unique way of approaching the xerox machine when its turn comes.Looks like a simple ad at the onset,but a lot of thought and research has gone into it.Similarly there are many more. But will they do away with the pup,....is what remains to be seen.

• Mango Frooti

While Frooti has seen one of the most successful ad campaigns in INDIA with the 'Mango Fruity Fresh n juicy' campaign.They never seemed to get a new tag line for their brand.This season they have come up with a very unique concept wherein we see grown up people just sipping into the Frooti tetra pack till they can suck out the last drop of the drink,making a very irritable sound.We all must have done this at some stage of our life and sometimes do it unknowingly even now. Capturing that into an add with a tagline saying 'Why Grow up?' ....I think was just amazing.

• Airtel

Airtel have in the past hired many bigwigs for their ad campaigns but the sparkling chemistry between their new brand anbassadors Vidya Balan and R Madhavan is unmatched for .Madhavan might not have got his film career going in Bollywood but there is no doubting his acting prowess.He must have convinced millions of couples in India to carry on their Phone spendings even during recession with the 'Pyar me no cutbacks' tagline. Too Good this one....
The Madhavan - Vidya Balan jodi shall be coming back together with Raj Kaushal (Anthony Kaun Hai) directed romantic comedy. Kaushal who has earlier also made films like Pyar Mein Kabhi Kabhi and Shaadi Ka Ladoo admits that he was inspired by the Airtel commercials featuring Madhavan and Vidya which made him cast the two together.



Well that's it for now.....I will be adding a few more to this list when i get some time off ..till then cheers !!!