Volkswagen tackles Australians’ road fears in latest Tiguan campaign via DDB Sydney
Volkswagen tackles road fears head on in this tongue-in-cheek horror-movie-style campaign to launch the 2021 Tiguan. The stylish new film and series of horror posters conceived by DDB Sydney parody some of the anxieties some of us have on the road; like parallel parking, giant roundabouts, and merging onto a four-lane highway.
And by some of us, we mean the vast majority. The campaign was based on new research revealing 79% of Australians have some kind of driving anxiety, with a whopping 59% of drivers fearing parallel parking – embarrassed of holding up traffic or worried they’ll hit another car while trying to park.
Says Rowena Kanna, marketing communications manager, Volkswagen Australia: “The research highlighted what we knew to be true, albeit anecdotally, which is that these little road stresses can quickly creep up to become genuine anxieties and fears.
“The new Volkswagen Tiguan helps conquer these fears thanks to I.Q. DRIVE, an intelligent driver assistance system with features such as Front Assist, Pedestrian Monitoring, and Lane Assist. We’re confident this exciting and unique campaign will cut through in a cluttered SUV market.”
Says Tim Woolford and Tommy Cehak, creative directors, DDB Sydney: “We’re not scared of driving. Although parallel parking makes us anxious. Actually, merging is nerve-racking… and we suppose people are pretty distracted by their phones these days, so that’s a worry…”
The visually arresting posters were created in collaboration with acclaimed Canadian movie poster artist Matt Ryan Tobin, who, during his illustrious career, has worked with the likes of Disney, Marvel, 20th Television (formerly known as 20th Century Fox), and Warner Brothers.
The film, directed by Revolver’s Bruce Hunt, is an homage to the psychological horror genre and was filmed on location in sub-zero temperatures in New South Wales’ Oberon.
The integrated campaign is part of the ‘Life feels better in a Volkswagen’ platform, and is running across TV, online, OOH, radio and social, with interactive AR to launch later in the year.
Client: Volkswagen Australia
Marketing Communications Manager: Rowena Kanna
Brand Communications Specialist: Julie Scarff
Agency: DDB Sydney
Chief Creative Officer: Ben Welsh
Executive Creative Director – Matt Chandler
Creative Director: Tommy Cehak
Creative Director: Tim Woolford
Copywriter: Tom Lawrence
Art Director: Sam Raftl
Chief Strategy Officer: Fran Clayton
Planning Director: James Davis
Managing Partner: Mandy Whatson
Senior Business Director: Nicole Drabsch
Business Manager: Izzy Crohan
Head of Integrated Content: Renata Barbosa
Senior TV Producer: Natalie Greaves
Senior Print Producer: John Wood
Senior Designer: Paul Jansen
Senior Finished Artist: Jose Rodrigues
TVC:
Production Company: Revolver
Director: Bruce Hunt
Executive Producer: Michael Ritchie & Pip Smart
Producer: Nicole Crozier
DOP: Danny Ruhlmann
Post Production: Jonathan @ Blackbird
Editor: Philip Horn
Colourist: Fergus Rotherham
Composer: Elliot Wheeler @ Turning Studios
Sound Engineer: Tone Aston @ Rumble
Posters:
Illustrator: Matt Ryan Tobin
Senior Print Producer: John Wood
Senior Designer: Paul Jansen
Senior Finished Artist: Jose Rodrigues
Media: PHD
74 Comments
I wish I thought of that
My lord that is good OOH
Absolute ‘I wish I made this’ work. Congrats to everyone who made this happen.
Lovely work everyone.
Wow, some actual, like ads.
Nice.
Amazing work Tommy & team.
This is awesome.
And said great job and craft on those posters.
but that’s good
TV ad is ordinary.
And I have seen the OOH movie poster parody/idea done for a product many times before. Nice craft though.
This is seriously good. Work that makes you jealous.
Wow. Breathtakingly good. Congrats to all involved.
The old ‘movie poster’ idea. Seriously this is good? Nice craft, devoid of original thinking.
Yeeeah. This is nice.
Brilliant!
Lovely stuff guys
I can only image how hard it must have been to get these out intact. This is good for the whole industry. Kudos DDB
Bloody awesome
Bootski
This is really cool. Well done guys!!!
I don’t work at DDB, however as an outsider and from the work they are far ahead of all other agencies.
This!!!!! LOOOOVVVEEE!!! Thank-you for restoring my faith in the craft of advertising!
yeah they must have cleaned up at Cannes
THIS IS CANNES TITANIUM, D&AD BLACK PENCIL, ONESHOW WINNING WORK.
HANDS DOWN THE BEST WORK THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER DONE. EVER.
AND YES, OF COURSE, I DON’T WORK AT DDB.
This whole campaign is hot like sunrise
Yes, it is nicely crafted, but this is a very old idea that’s been done countless times before.
Art direction and print work is super fun – though why drop the ball on the TVC? Hacky.
This is great.
Great idea and very nicely executed. Congrats to the whole team involved.
When doing ads seems new to people.
Seriously, did someone pay a Russian server farm to leave positive comments?
This is like AWARD school work. The craft is nice but the insight is not only comically juvenile and simplistic but also done to death.
Also, for the Average Joe walking down the street, I’d argue these could easily be overlooked as actual movie posters.
Feel like I’m taking crazy pills over here. Anyone??
Mate totally. I was just driving home and saw about 10 car OOh ads and this work didn’t look like any of them. They all had models posing in front of the car with a pithy line about power or performance. Not sure what these dickheads were thinking not following suit.
This work has some fun in a serious and often seriously boring category. Sure people have used horror tropes before. Who gives a flying fuck.
The droga5 Phelps spot had been done before, that was done better.
What about the the New York Times work, that idea has been done millions of times, they did it differently.
Maybe you should take some of those “crazy pills” you might broaden your sad and negative little mind.
Does the car actually have park assist?
I love these. They’re just like the fear campaigns I run when we have one or two cases of COVID
The work is ordinary to say the least. Been there, done that. Shame, it could have been extraordinary.
And I don’t like it
You’re not crazy buddy don’t worry.
I can’t tell you how exhausting it is to see some of these (albeit minority) comments from old, probably freelance, creatives. It’s objectively good work. Can you imagine selling this to a real client? Let alone a behemoth like Volkswagen. This should be celebrated. Anyone with eyes can see that.
No I can’t imagine selling this to a real client.
I’ll be staggered if one person in a thousand who sees these can remember they’re for a car, let alone remember the brand, the model and the attribute.
These are fkn fun! Craft is spot on. This is the kind of work that would make me want to get into advertising if I wasn’t already in advertising.
… this will not sell a single car.
This sounds like Timmy!
https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/34554245/horror-dicks-campaign/loveglove-condoms
These are actually much better and despite being the movie poster look, have more fun with it.
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2020/01/21/nhs-creates-dramatic-small-ailment-movie-reactions-drive-pharmacy-visits
I’d love to have this in my book. Congrats to all and sundry
Ffs How many times has the ol movie poster misdirect been done??? A senior CD worth his salt should know this and nip this AWARD School shite in the bud.
Beautifully crafted but not good OOH. The supporting copy is too small so the average passer by will just see a scared driver and the VW logo.
Missed a trick by not doing SEO around the movie titles. If a passer-by was intrigued and googled the film titles they should be able to find some additional information.
made you look !
Agree. Good creatives don’t always make good CDs. The proof is in the poster.
Print good…TV…WTF?? Maybe the driver needs to go back to drivers ed…talk about making the consumer look like a hapless fool.
One of the best campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. Bravo!!
It’s good. Anything that doesn’t look like a movie poster is shit.
This work is reflective of planners and creatives not understanding the VW brand, audience and product, and has been designed to generate industry kudos and not for the consumer.
For someone outside the industry who is going to be watching the TVC whilst on their phone, or walking/ driving past a poster with a matter of seconds to see it, that is a pretty farfetched concept to have a meaningful brand connection with.
Go back to the brief, understand who you’re talking to, and craft a piece of work that is designed for business and consumer effectiveness and not for comments on an industry blog.
Would love to see effectiveness results on this.
Stick to proactive activations
Isn’t this the first idea you’d have out of award school?
Isn’t this in a similar tried vein of a TV montage spot?
VW have a long history of great ads but this is genuinely a common idea that is not ground breaking.
The best thing about this work … is the extent the agency went to photograph the posters on location and all the retouching involved.
If only they spent more time on the actual idea and not done to death movie parody stuff.
What 30 year old male is scared to enter a round about? This makes VW drivers look like a bunch of fragile, confused learner drivers.
Lemon
Pretty obvious when the first batch of comments are so over the top positive that they come from the agency involved.
Then reality kicks in when everyone else points out how average the work actually is. Classic Campaign Brief.
Why do you think people feel the need to “point out how average the work actually is”? on any of the work posted.
It really is a strange, nasty, and sad reality, that, unfortunately, sets our industry apart from every other in the world.
Is it a pure hatred of other ideas they feel the need to express? A dissatisfaction that their own “cool ideas” aren’t seeing the light of day?
Who knows, but what we could probably all agree on is that it does nothing for anyone and harms our industry and its perception all over the world.
Makes creative work. Not effective enough. Makes effective work. Not creative enough
Makes effective work. Start and stop there. That creativity’s only role.
Not the first time average work from DDB was spammed
If you can’t use a roundabout you shouldn’t be driving.
Full stop. What a STUPID ad?!
Nice one Tom!
VO talent’s a bit pants.
Just the other day I saw some brilliant and classic VW ads from Europe promoting VW mechanical servicing. Current model VW set in the future,
art directed beautifully with one line of copy. Made me respect VW. These on the other hand are not very good and incomparable creatively.
Parallel parking, Roundabout?
Are these ads targeting 16 year old L’platers?
Maybe very rich ones that can afford a VW Tiguan?
Classic case of all craft, weak idea.
The ol’ movie poster technique. Done a bajillion times over and over and over. Yawn.
Who’s scared of empty roundabouts?
Not touching this with a barge pole.
Spot on.
Fail. Derivative of other work and a totally flawed and tone-deaf concept. How many people are killed or seriously injured by drivers? And VW want us to fear pedestrians?
https://shortyawards.com/12th/hyundai-halloween-posters-2