POLO UNFAIL

Short List
TitlePOLO UNFAIL
BrandVOLKSWAGEN
Product / ServiceVOLKSWAGEN POLO
CategoryG04. Social Behaviour & Cultural Insight
EntrantDDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation DDB SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Production RIOT CONTENT Northcote, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Ben Welsh DDB Sydney Chief Creative Officer
Tara Ford DDB Sydney Executive Creative Director
Vince Osmond DDB Sydney Creative Partner
Jade Manning DDB Sydney Creative Partner
Tommy Cehak DDB Sydney Senior Creative
Jared Wicker DDB Sydney Creative
Andrew Little DDB Sydney Chief Executive Officer
Priya Patel DDB Sydney Managing Director
Mandy Whatson DDB Sydney Managing Partner
Oliver Gould DDB Sydney Senior Business Director
Alexandra Lawton DDB Sydney Senior Business Manager
Sevda Cemo DDB Sydney Head of Integrated Content
Sam Harris DDB Sydney Producer
Ben Wilks Volkswagen General Manager Marketing
Rowena Kanna Volkswagen Marketing Communications Manager
Hayley Phillips Volkswagen Brand Communications Specialist
Matt Weston Riot Director
Dave Christison Riot Producer

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

The millennial generation doesn’t respond well to TV commercials. So instead, we hid our message in the sort of video they interact with every day: a fail video. That unbranded video was seeded out to specific viral sites and meme pages – reaching exactly the audience we wanted. They loved it so much, they shared our video with their friends. In fact, it went viral. Once we had this giant database of viewers, we narrowed our audience by specifically retargeted potential Polo buyers who had also seen the video with an invitation to learn more.

Background

The Volkswagen Polo is relatively inexpensive and packed with safety tech – making it a great choice for drivers of any age. We already had an effective television commercial talking about its host of safety features. The problem? It didn’t reach half our audience. Millennials (25-35) don’t tend to watch – or care – about television commercials. And the Volkswagen Polo was built with younger drivers in mind. Our challenge? Make safety features feel fun and relevant to this younger generation of drivers. Using channels they actually watched. In a way that stood out from the rest of the beige marketing clutter.

Describe the creative idea (30% of vote)

The Volkswagen Polo is packed with safety tech. And while this safety tech doesn’t excite our younger audience, it does help them fail less. So instead of creating an ad, we found a way into their social feeds by creating a fail video – with no fail. Instead, our safety tech saved the day. We used a strategic seeding process to leak an unbranded version of this video to specific viral sites and meme pages younger drivers loved. Then, we let it do its thing in the viral universe. Several million views and dozens of international publications later, we retargeted potential Polo customers who had seen the video with a branded version on Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, strategically revealing the cheeky caper to those who matter most.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

While the new Polo looks great, its biggest standout features are its safety features and innovations – elements that are not key purchase drivers our target audience, young SINKS & DINKS (20 - 34 years old). This demographic are digital natives and connectivity is crucial to them. They value the opinions of their peers and influencers, and can navigate and evade the heavy-handed messaging often served to them in traditional formats. By tapping into the viral world and hiding our message in a fail video, we got our audience to actively share our messaging and promote the new Polo. Then, we implemented a retargeting strategy that found potential Polo customers who had viewed the video, inviting them to find out more about the safety-packed Polo.

Describe the execution (20% of vote)

The internet can spot a fake video in seconds. We spent days making sure our video looked like any other user-generated viral video – from orientation to scaled-back quality. Next, we had to leak it online. But we needed a real person with a fitting social feed: @jstrakertroublemaker. Acting like he had filmed it, we executed a strategic viral seeding strategy, sharing the video with a custom database of viral sites and meme pages. The views racked up immediately, across dozens of websites, videos and TV shows. We tracked them all, waiting until popularity had reached its peak. Then, we implemented a retargeting strategy that identified promising leads who had viewed the video, and followed it up with a branded version that appeared in their Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat feeds. Planning began in 2017, while the creative execution began in July 2018. We launched the unfail video in August 2018.

List the results (30% of vote)

The results was a record 11.8% increase in market share – smashing the intended business goals – along with a 13% rise in website traffic, 22% rise in online configurations and a 95% increase in dealer leads. This was all spearhead by 147.6 million views (and rising) of the original video, with $17.8 million in earned media, leading to 21.7 million retargeted campaign impressions. The Polo Unfail campaign also increased unique visitors to the Volkswagen homepage, recording a 9.4% lift. There was even a brand lift study associated with the campaign, which produced hugely favourable results for the Volkswagen brand and Polo as an individual model. This included 5.3% lift in Awareness, a 4.2% increase in safety association and a 5.9% increase in affinity and brand perception.

Please tell us about the social behaviour and/or cultural insights that inspired your campaign

The new Polo’s safety tech is a big deal, making the roads a safer place for everyone – but it simply didn’t excite younger car buyers. And it was tough to change their minds, because this younger generation is also not so keen on traditional advertising mediums. At the same time, they are deeply entrenched in viral culture – collectively sharing hundreds of different fail videos every day. So – we decided to do something a little different. Instead of adopting a conventional media approach, we found a culturally relevant way to reach a generally unreceptive audience. By disguising our message as a viral ‘fail’ video, we were able to deliver a safety message to an audience that would otherwise not have seen or cared about it.

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