Title	RS6 HOLOPHONIC EXPERIENCE
Brand	AUDI FRANCE
Product/Service	AUDI
Category	A05. LIVE EXPERIENCE
Entrant Company	FRED & FARID GROUP Paris, FRANCE
Contributing Company	FRED & FARID GROUP Paris, FRANCE
Production Company	MÉCANIQUE GÉNÉRALE Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Fred/Farid	FRED/FARID GROUP	Chief Creative Officers
Julien/Pierre Mallet	FRED/FARID GROUP	Art Director
Julien/Pierre Mallet	FRED/FARID GROUP	Copywriter
François Grouiller	FRED/FARID GROUP	Head Of Strategy
Daniel Dormeyer/Robin Garabedian	FRED/FARID GROUP	Account Director
Katharina Nicol	FRED/FARID GROUP	Agency Producer
Marc/Andreas Brinkmann/Fabien Neel/Sabrina Nicolas	AUDI FRANCE	Clients

The Campaign

We conducted the Audi RS6 “Blind Drive” campaign in France, a country where Branded Entertainment is at the center of the conversation: everybody talk about it, but few brands manage to do something interesting. Most branded content efforts in France have failed either because people saw it as fake, or because it failed to entertain them. Indeed, today branded content competes directly with all the amazing unbranded content released by production companies, users or Youtube celebrities. This “genuine” content is the one that’s the most likely to be shared and talked about on social networks. It has also to be noted that any brand mention on TV is forbidden and punished with tough sanctions against the TV channels. Huge car brands like Renault have their own cable channel, but nobody watch them. Our benchmark study showed that the only branded content to emerge is the one that brings something new to the table, either by its subject or its format.

Results

The objective of the campaign was to attract new customers by showcasing the horsepower of the new Audi RS6, a sportscar designed to send a rush of excitement to anyone who seats behind its wheel. Yet, simply talking about the sensations provided by the sporty features of the car in a traditional fashion was not enough to properly convey such a feeling: words and images are just far too limited. So we conceived a campaign to make the target audience physically experience the sensations of driving the Audi RS6. To achieve this we had to face quite a challenge: how to create the physical sensation that would transport the audience in the driving seat? To tackle this challenge, we decided to trigger the sense that gives us the richest blend of sensations and stimulates best our imagination – which, as research in neuroscience highlighted, is our auditory system. But the problem was that replicating a true hearing experience is impossible with traditional recording technics, since they only provide a 2-dimensional sound experience. Thus, to create a truly immersive virtual test drive, we leveraged holophonics, a unique 3D sound technic. In total, we installed 32 microphones in and around the Audi RS 6. Two of them were located in the ears of a “dummy head” placed in the driving seat to determine how exactly the sounds spread and reach the driver’s ears. The emitted sound waves were then mixed by 7 sound engineers using a technic called “binaural synthesis” so as to offer the listener’s brain a full 1080° hearing experience. Then research helped us find out an additional insight: we are even better at localizing sound when the brain makes up for the absence of visual insights. So we decided to plunge the audience into the pitch-blackness at movie theaters. Online, we asked people to use headphones and switch off their lights. Immersed in this “blind drive” 3D sound experience, viewers were literally transported into the Audi RS6, for a jaw-dropping 3-minute test drive.

We explored a new kind of genre we called “Immersive Branded Content”. Indeed, we used a 3-dimensional sound technic called “holophonics” to give people the real sensations of what it feels to drive an Audi RS6, creating the first “immersive test drive”. This type of experiences can only be reproduced in places where we have control over the sound system and the level of darkness: Therefore all media where used to tease our audience to go experience “holophonics” in theaters, on youtube or on the Audi RS6 dedicated website where we asked people to put on their headphones switch off their light. Although not fully holophonics, on TV, a frequency sweeping technic was set up to create a disruptive auditory experience that captivates viewers’ attention, even when multitasking during TV breaks – motivating people to go to their second screen for the full experience.

5 million people (a quarter of French driving population) experienced our immersive brand experiences. The immersive brand experience was rated positively 9 times out of 10 on youtube – which is well above youtube standards (4-6 out of 10 on average) – which is even more remarkable considering this is branded content. The campaign was saluted by more than 30 articles on qualified media specialized in automotive, luxury and music design. From a business standpoint, the campaign has proven to be an indisputable success. Indeed, showcasing the persuasive power of this stimulating quasi real-life experience, online configurations for the Audi RS6 increased by 75% vs. the month before the campaign, while sales jumped by 275% vs. the average month.