PoloDriver

With the first press drives complete and the car now in showrooms, the European advertising campaign for the new Volkswagen Polo was launched today. The primary focus will be on the sixth-generation car’s safety assistance and convenience systems, with the first press advertisement proclaiming ‘Your back-up when backing-up’, and promoting the Park Pilot and Park Assist functions.

‘Emotional, authentic and humourous’
‘As one of the world’s most advanced small cars, the new Polo calls the tune in its class when it comes to safety – something that is important to people. Our campaign highlights this subject in typical Volkswagen style: emotional, authentic and humorous’, said Jürgen Stackmann, Volkswagen Brand Board Member for Sales. According to Volkswagen, the new TV commercial, print materials and social media campaign will highlight how the new Polo ‘combines safety with adventure’.

The ‘emotional’ aspect comes in the form of a father and son story illustrated in the TV commercial. The spot which shows how assistance systems ‘can enrich lives’, with the father’s unsuccessful attempts to assist his more adventurous son documented through time. But, when they are both in the new Polo, he can relax as the car will ‘assist’ his son, through its numerous safety systems which include a blind spot lane change monitor, as well as front and pedestrian monitors.

The ‘360-degree’ campaign begins in over 30 European countries simultaneously. The print campaign will focus on modern convenience and safety technologies, while Volkswagen also states that the new Polo will also be the star of ‘entertaining’ feature films especially made for social media channels. The campaign has been devised by DDB Berlin, DDB Hamburg, and Adam&Eve DDB London.

The new Polo’s ‘father and son’ one-minute TV spot can be seen at www.volkswagen.de.

Starting on 1 August, the New Polo will be driving through the streets of South Africa, and Volkswagen South Africa is giving drivers in the country the opportunity to win one for a year, by playing #PoloTag.

Playing #PoloTag is easy. Follow @VolkswagenSA on Twitter, spot the Cornflower Blue #PoloTag-emblazoned New Polo along the pre-determined specified routes, tweet #PoloTag to @VolkswagenSA and you become ‘IT’. (Tweeters need to add their location to the #PoloTag tweet, too, to be eligible to enter the competition.)

Then, @VolkswagenSA will respond to tweets with #AlmostIT, informing participants if they’ve been selected for the competition. If so, tweeters will need to make their way to the #PoloTag New Polo quickly.

When in the New Polo, the driver’s Twitter name will be placed on top of the New Polo, and timing will start. The longer that tweeter drives, the better their chances of winning the car will be.

If another tweet lands and the sender makes it to the #PoloTag Polo in time, the new tweeter tales over the drive. If not, the previous tweeter carries on the drive and has better chance of winning the car.

Each tweeter’s driving time is placed on a leaderboard and the winner is selected from a draw of longest tweeter drives in the #PoloTag New Polo. Simple?

If more than one tweet is selected at any one time, it’s a foot race to the car to take over driving. If a tweeter s beaten to the car, they have to wait until their tweet is tagged again before they have a chance to drive the car again.

The special #PoloTag New Polo is scheduled to visit Cape Town on 1-2 August, Duban on 8-9 August and finally Johannesburg on 15-16 August. Use the routes here to find the #PoloTag New Polo and search out the landmarks to stand a better chance of winning.

#PoloTag appears to be an innovative piece of social media marketing and a good way to engage with prospective New Polo customers, as well as promoting the car. We have visions of South Africans looking at their smartphones, meandering through the streets of the country’s cities, though…

Good luck!

‘Drive Confident’. That’s just one of the slogans Volkswagen has decided upon as the lynchpin of the New Polo advertising campaign. An international launch campaign has been unveiled under the ‘Reassuringly safe. Calming innovative.’ banner and sees advertising materials focus on the New Polo’s extensive safety features and technology.

The car boasts many class firsts for safety, and so the TV and press advertisements focus on features such as the Front Assist monitoring system with City Emergency Braking function, ACC automatic distance control, as well as the new and innovative LED headlights. The campaign was launched in Germany on 16 April and will see a roll-out across Europe. Formats will include print and web media, as well as TV spots and ‘web specials’ such as microsites.

A ‘web special’ microsite is available at www.polo.de, which features new product information, interactive 360-degree experiences, assistance system films, and interactive social media opportunities. It has been created by DDB Tribal Hamburg. The print campaign has been created by DDB Team Blue and DDB Tribal Berlin.

The TV campaign meanwhile was created by DDB Team Blue and DDB Amsterdam and features a new composition of Under Pressure by David Bowie and Queen. Showing drivers with animated and nervous passengers, the message is that the New Polo does a lot of the driving safety work for you, leaving passengers much calmer. Another features the MirrorLink function which enables control of a smartphone through the New Polo’s new infotainment system.

The star of the New Polo campaign is the limited edition Polo Fresh model, available for one year after the refreshed car’s introduction, and available in the UK as the SE Design model. The example used in the campaign has LED headlights, panoramic sunroof, and is painted in the eye-catching ‘Cornflower Blue’ colour, presumably to catch younger drivers’ attention (it’s also a great shade).

The New Polo is already on sale in mainland Europe, with UK deliveries starting in July. Priced at £11,100 for the 1.0 S, the range rises through S A/C, SE, SE Design and SEL, and tops off with the sporty yet frugal BlueGT featuring cylinder deactivation technology. BlueMotion and GTI models will follow later in the year. Visit our extensive New Polo pages for more information.

Fresh from its 2013 FIA World Rally Championship titles*, Volkswagen is celebrating its debut WRC season haul with a number of marketing campaigns. Part of the company’s successful and high-profile ‘Rally the World’ marketing message, the new elements of the campaign encompass video, advertising and brand media. A 60-second ‘Story of Glory’ film looks back at the key moments in Volkswagen’s debut WRC campaign. The fantastically-edited clip features many shots of the Polo R WRC sliding around icy forest tracks, jumping over gravel-laden hills, and slithering around asphalt stages. Watch it below or catch it online at the Rally the World website.

A very clever stylised medal logo featuring the iconic VW roundel supported by two ‘ribbons’ in its light grey and blue colours has been designed. Printed onto T-shirts worn by the Volkswagen drivers’ supporting crews on the Rally Spain, a large format version has been created for the VW roundel on Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg factory. Situated on the power station of the building, it looks out over the Mittelandkanal, which also has a part to play in celebrating Volkswagen’s success. An extra-large format poster of the drivers and Polo R WRC with a ‘champagne fountain’ water feature sits on the bank of the canal.

And as luck would have it, when you own the town, you can paint in red, or at least yellow (or light grey and blue). All Wolfsburg town signs bear a yellow plate under the main sign that reads ‘City of the World Rally Champion*’, with the roundel medal logo also included. Finally, an advertising campaign has been rolled out in Germany, Italy, France, UK, Spain and Australia by creative strategy agency Greenkern. There was also a Facebook campaign for 3999 fans to upload their profile photos via the Rally The World website to be used to decorate the Polo R WRC driven by Andreas Mikkelsen at Wales Rally GB from 13-17 November. Volkswagen stole early victory in the 2013 World Rally Championship with both the manufacturers and drivers’/co-drivers’ titles*, campaigning three Polo R WRCs.

*Subject to the official publication of the results by FIA

The latest in a line of interactive advertising campaigns for the current fifth-generation Polo, Volkswagen Denmark has launched ‘The Polo Principle’. What is it? The company says: ‘We take the newest technology, the highest quality – the innovations that were made for the elite – and make them available to everyone. Each and every part of the Polo works to give the power of innovation and quality to all.’ That’s all very well, but what’s more impressive is that way in which the campaign is being marketed.

Users are invited to create their own Polo ‘prototype’, either by downloading a template to illustrate in Adobe software, or by using the online 3D designer. Using preset tools and icons, users can layer on designs and graphics or even upload their own. The realistic, fully interactive online modeller gives many views of the car, and can be rotated and spun, so all the car is decorated. When complete, the user clicks the ‘Make It Real’ button and the finished Polo prototype is shown on the next page.

By submitting a design, the user is effectively entered into a prize draw. Volkswagen Denmark will select the 40 most creative cars for clever plaster-based 3D printing, as shown in the video above. The successful creators will then receive a physical 3D prototype models of their design after they’ve been exhibited in Copenhagen in May. Finally, one lucky winner will have their Polo prototype turned into a real Polo (by way of a film wrap of their design we imagine), and will get to drive it for two months this summer.