Results and Effectiveness

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.

Creative Execution

Because we needed to create awareness that the iconic shape was back we took out a classified ad in a newspaper which has the country’s highest circulation - the New Zealand Herald. We placed our ad in the classifieds section to target people already looking for a new car and direct them to our Facebook promo. We also ran a full page press ad to highlight and celebrate the best Beetleing pictures submitted by our Facebook fans.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

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. 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. We and the client believe this was a relevant and unique way to promote the new shape of The Beetle that also embodied the fun value of the Beetle brand.