The Campaign

We wanted to turn the Volkswagen Beetle from a nostalgic memory to a 21st Century icon. Our task was to launch the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle and create awareness that the iconic shape was back. So, we created Beetleing - the act of imitating the Beetle’s iconic shape in an unlikely or unusual location.

Success of the Campaign

With no seeding budget and over the four weeks of the campaign we reached close to 3million people, which is almost ¾ of New Zealand. Volkswagen NZ’s Facebook fans grew tenfold, we exceeded our target and The Beetle sold out even before it arrived in the country. More importantly the icon was talked about again. Especially by our lucky winner.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

Volkswagen NZ’s Facebook page provided an incentive, by way of a promo where people could Beetle to win The Beetle and share Beetleing with their friends. With a current Facebook fan base at around 2,000, we were given the ambitious task of 20,000 new fans. To provide inspiration, we then created a web film showing a bunch of people Beetleing across the country. The best submissions form our Facebook fans made it into press ads and our classified ad targeted people already looking for a new car. While both ads directed people to our Facebook promo, we had a local radio station doing the same around summer hot spots around the country.