DDB Sydney and Volkswagen Jetta open the door to young Australian families with ‘Memories’ spot
CB Exclusive – Volkswagen Australia and DDB Sydney have launched a new ad campaign to introduce the new Volkswagen Jetta to the Australian family market.
The new TVC – ‘Memories’ – is filmed entirely through the eyes of a young girl and focuses on the role of the first family car and the special place it holds within family life to help the brand create an emotional connection with consumers.
The TVC launches with 60, 45 and 30 second editions. Two print executions, web banners and a dedicated microsite complement the TVC along with radio spots on the Austereo network.
DDB
Executive Creative Director: Dylan Harrison
Creative Directors: Steve Wakelam, Nick Pringle
Digital Creative Director: Matt Grogan
Print Creative Team: Daniel Ieraci, Simon Friedlander
Digital Creative Team: Simon O’Neill, Lazarus Simons
Managing Partner: Nicole Taylor
Planning: Rach Kimber, Nick Andrews
Business Management: Dave Murphy, Josette Addinall, Patrice Bougouin
TV producer: Brenden Johnson
Digital Producer: Ellie Campbell
Digital Production: Tribal DDB
Project Director: Ben Elvy
Print Producer: John Wood
Art buyer: Leesa Murray
PARTNERS
Director: Mark Malloy
Producer: Alice Grant
Production Company: Exit Films
Photographer: Chris Sisarich
Music: ‘Size Matters’ composed by Evelyn Morris and performed by Ben Mason
Media: MediaCom
VOLKSWAGEN
General Manager, Marketing: Jutta Friese
Brand Communications Manager: Peter Stewart
Advertising Specialist: Loren Elsegood
49 Comments
A little bit ‘ho hum.’
Lovely.
Probably Australia’s best car advertising.
Now available at DDB Sydney.
I like those. They’re great!
i really like it. and i wasn’t even a little girl.
it’s beautifully simple, nicely shot and with a really nice insight. well done to all at the agency and the client too. jealous.
I love this.
Brave to take a non product driven insight and own it. Refreshing to not see loads of features and car porn shots.
Love how they manage to make their ads feel very VW but distinctive for each car.
And no. I don’t work at DDB.
Very DDB London, very good.
very nice. another hit
I love this.
Brave to take a non product driven insight and own it. Refreshing to not see loads of features and car porn shots.
Love how they manage to make their ads feel very VW but distinctive for each car.
And no. I don’t work at DDB.
b
Really well done.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
I have liked their previous work, this leaves me non plussed. Maybe its the dreary soundtrack.
About a million credits and no Agency Producer listed. I’d be annoyed.
Beautiful… really really nice.
Not many jobs come out of AUS with so much class.
Great work MarK and DDB..
There’s an agency producer, but no production producer. Always the unsung hero..
Nice ad, well done
I didn’t produce this, but I wish I had. It’s fucking killer. Best car ad for a very long time, and indeed a solid nod to Noah’s work in London for VW via DDB.
It says ‘TV Producer: Brenden Johnson’… is that what you’re after?
There’s an agency producer, but no production producer. Always the unsung hero..
Nice ad, well done
Lovely work. And kudos to the client.
Probably the only car brand in Australia who knows who they are.
After dealing with most testosterone-fueled car marketing directors in Aus, it’s great to FINALLY see a one with the nuts to realise that absolutely no car brand in this country has done anything breakthrough for many, many years.
This is beautifully shot, has a fucking insight and will hopefully sell truckloads of VWs to a market that’s seen the same ‘top shot of silver car driving through water’ shot for about a decade.
Unfortunately for Clems Sydney, their ‘Love that Car’ embarrassment on the blog recently shows the gaping chasm between everyone else and VW right now.
And yes, the ‘nothing soft gets in’ campaign was great, but this is better. The macho car shit has to end.
Awesome way to start the kind of campaign that proves that car advertising doesn’t have to remain in 1993.
you know what, don’t like DDB, but this is awesome insight, great idea and sensationally executed…..wish it was on my reel….
Great work by Pikelet on the music.
DDBOOM
This spot is lovely but will it overcome the Jeremy Clarkson review where he suggested that if you were offered a Jetta to drive or to be dead, you should choose dead
Yes, it is different from the usual stuff. On the strength of that , I guess it has done rule one. However, I wouldn’t exactly call ‘You never forget your first car’ and insight. Come to think of it, I would rather forget my parents’ first car. I wouldn’t exactly buy a car because my kid wanted it (did the kid like the car? The way she is treating the car doesn’t reflect it.) Says it was filmed entirely through the eyes of a small child. How did they get the camera inside the head of a child? Mmm, two parents, two kids and a new baby in a VW Jetta? With room for a pram and all the stuff that comes with a small family? Seems this scenario fits a family looking for a bigger car. Let’s see how many cars it sells.
“Says it was filmed entirely through the eyes of a small child. How did they get the camera inside the head of a child?” = WEAK JOKE.
Please consider carefully before posting in future.
MMm,
the ddb london ad was about little girl in NY, needing the safety that VW provided. What does this say about the car please. really, I don’t know.
Dear Ian,
I really hope you’re not a client.
I suspect you might be.
Please give this up and go and do something that requires no imagination.
Awesome. Who wants Ian to comment on every post?
Breath of fresh air.
my ‘first car’ was my mum’s cream 1970s VW Golf. She sold it to a uni student when i was 4 years old. i cried my little eyes out when he drove it away. So that’s why i like this. Wunderbar DDB.
They love a vignette over at DDB don’t they.
The last 3 or 4 ads a re completely interchangeable.
Looks nice, no idea.
My first car was a Holden and here lies the problem with a category generic idea. And it hasn’t got the magic of singing dog or darth kid, to be embraced by the public. Plus the POV device is old now, brought back into fashion by a Nike football advert a few years ago and used over and over many times since. Nicely shot though, which deserves some praise. Fair critique? Please feedback.
This makes me realise i need a new producer and production company. This is splendid work. I’ll get you next time, malloy… NEXT TIIIIIME!!!!
Cannes lion of some sort is on the way. Bronze or silver probably.
The people who don’t like the ad are actually saying they don’t like DDB. What’s laughable is that they’re not even self-aware enough to spot it
Anyway well done to steve, dylan, the rest of you lot… you’re doing the best work in sydney and perhaps australia right now.
It’s so refreshing. It’ll stand out, get noticed because it’s different, sounds great, looks fab, evokes memories, and it reveals something new every time. Remember, the job of advertising isn’t to sell stuff, it’s to make it more sellable. The best ad in the world can’t sell expensive shit. This car looks shit (so, good move to avoid the car porn), and is probably more expensive than those Asian alternatives, but this ad will certainly get it on the consideration set. With VW’s huge waiting lists for new models, it will flog enough for VW in the process to make this campaign a success. Job well done. DDB seem to be on the up! Would be good to see better work from their other brands soon.
Nicely shot. I’m gonna go out on a limb though, and say if it wins awards, they will only be for craft…
Sure, the lack of car porn is a breakthrough and shows DDB has a brave client, but it didn’t make a great ad.
The insight is category generic. And while it’s true, it’s not really compelling – my first car was a rat-beige Ford Laser sedan that I’d prefer to forget.
If the idea dramatised a truth unique to the Jetta it would be more convincing. It might make people actually want one.
A product truth (yes, a wank planner term, I know) doesn’t mean you have to have 30 seconds of car porn. It just means the idea dramatises the one thing the car does better than any other, is believable, ‘on brand’, and that consumers care about. A classic ‘reason to believe’.
And it should be an idea simple enough that you can explain it in a text message.
This had lead to metal at Cannes for years:
– Honda ‘Grrr’ – a better diesel. Honda’s are an ‘innovation company and this was their first Diesel.
– LandCruiser ‘Nothing soft gets in’ – toughness. A LandCruiser trademark. No ‘new news’, but still brilliant. And Australian.
Hmmm…
– Jetta ‘Memories’ – great for famlies? Or am I missing something? How the Jetta can own this better than say, a Corolla, I don’t know.
Oh, and in case you didn’t know the target is families, it’s ‘The new family Jetta’.
Because the spot is beautifully made it will work well for Mark Malloy, but I don’t think it will do anything for the Volkswagen Jetta. Pity really, because the brand is so awarded internationally, and the local client seems to be brave.
My view: it strikes me as a missed opportunity to do something truly great.
And before you ask – I don’t work in the car industry, for DDB for Saatchi. I’m not a planner or client. I’m not British. And I don’t work for a production company. I’m just surprised an everyone fawning all over a spot that isn’t really that good.
Hello Missing something, you said it yourself:
‘The insight is category generic. And while it’s true, it’s not really compelling – my first car was a rat-beige Ford Laser sedan that I’d prefer to forget.’
Your first car was shit and you’d prefer to forget it – the ad is saying that whatever car you buy as parents your kids will remember for the rest of their lives – therefore make sure the car is good.
Or here’s the text message if it helps: YOUR KIDS WILL NEVR FORGT THEIR FIRST CAR – MAKE SURE IT’S A GOOD ONE. LOL! 🙂
I agree with everyone else who disagrees with you. Have a nice tuesday.
hey – missing something – when everyone on a site as bitchy as this one is fawning over an ad, it means it’s good.
simple as that
if we’re putting in predictions i’d say silver
lovely spot – makes me all emotional which ain’t pretty……..
it’s genuinely made my wife broody. no kidding
well done ddb sydney
best stuff coming out of aus right now, hands down.
actually find myself looking forward to the next VW stuff… well done ddb, well done vw australia for not treating us all like morons
the jetta is a bad car.
the further the agency stay away from the realities of it, the better. that’s why this ad is just right – as a new parent it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy… and that’s a very good start.
there’s no way i’d put a jetta on my consideration list (and that’s what ATL car ads are all about) but thats only because i know it’s a terrible car. if it wasn’t, I would.
really well done to all involved
‘Missing something?’ – now that we don’t have to type in those squiggly words to comment on this blog, I have a question:
are you a netbot?
Is every one for real? Get your heads out of the sand. and your hands off of it. This insight has been done to death for cars. Its on so many reels. Mercedes in South Africa creamed it in the 80’s for such an insight for one.
No doubt about it, it is shot awesomely.
Well done.
ps. I think the director Chris Sferre…?? had a ‘you never forget your first car’ kind of execution on his reel when he first arrived in OZ.
If you’re at a movie, say, and everyone in the audience is laughing except you, do you stand up and tell the audience they’re all wrong? Or, as you work in advertising, do you try to appreciate what might be funny (because it might make you better at your job?)
I’m fascinated is all.
You’re picking it apart too much guys. Firstly, a product truth is a great starting point, I agree, but it has to be meaningful and compelling. However, it’s not the be all end all, and if you don’t have one (which I think is the case with the Jetta), you still have cultural insights to play with in an emotional way. By stressing the importance of the product truth in your comments, you appear to be assuming that it’s the most powerful way to motivate people. We’re an irrational species. Do some reading around it. There’s plenty that might open your mind to new ways of approaching your comms ideas.
WTF: Insights have been used over and over. There are only so many insights worth using in comms ideas. I’m sure the young family in Harris Park aren’t going to be too pissed off that the insight was used in South Africa in the 80s. Do you slag off The Beatles because they wrote a song or two about being in love? “Hang on guys! that insight has been used before. Come up with something original John you cheating bastard” . Nobody cares in the real world mate. REAL WORLD = that place outside your office that contains lots of real people.
What’s all the fuss about?
It reminds me of this MCDonalds spot, and no one is banging on about how amazing this is.
Seriously, VW is nice. That’s it.
It’s better than Love That Fucking Car. But that campaign is so rizible it makes this look like Honda Grrr.
Which it ain’t.
This is the fucker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLI-1y5EKNA
whats the name of the song used?
I was really concerned when I first saw this ad. I actually thought it was an ad warning against child abuse. I probably had the sound off but even after several viewings I couldn’t shake the feeling of creepiness.