Results and Effectiveness

• 8th March 2010; Volkswagen Polo showed a huge spike in India Google Trends (Source: Google). • Huge PR value with leading media DISCUSSING the innovation; was the most talked about topic. • 37% sales target was achieved through this innovation (regular multimedia campaign was aired a month later).

Creative Execution

Our solution was something that would be impossible for consumers to miss. Their newspaper with a hole! We got India’s largest newspaper The Times of India (TOI) with 6.8Mn readers to punch a hole right through the newspaper in the shape of the Polo. There was no way a reader could miss this. The entire operation of manually cutting the hole using a die-cut across 2.7mn copies of TOI was a logistical nightmare. But the ensuing impact was phenomenal.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Volkswagen, a relatively unknown brand in India with 13% awareness was launching a small car ‘Polo’. Polo competed with big boys like Hyundai, Tata, Maruti,... all with TOM in excess of 80%. To deliver an aggressive sales target, Volkswagen needed quick saliency & high buzz around the brand. There are atleast 6 aggressive car launches in India every year. Full-page & half page ads were the category norm. Every day, newspapers carried atleast 3-4 car ads. For Polo, the challenge was to stand apart, be noticed & grab mind-space quickly with the consumer.