THE REVERSED TRAILER

Short List
TitleTHE REVERSED TRAILER
BrandVOLKSWAGEN NORWAY/ HARALD A. MØLLER
Product/ServiceVOLKSWAGEN TRAILER ASSIST
Category B04. Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale
Entrant TRY Oslo, NORWAY
Idea Creation TRY Oslo, NORWAY
Media Placement MEDIACOM Oslo, NORWAY
Media Placement 2 BE ON Oslo, NORWAY
PR TRY Oslo, NORWAY
Production BACON OSLO Oslo, NORWAY
Credits
Name Company Position
Øystein Halvorsen TRY Creative Director/ Copywriter
Karin Lund TRY Art Director
Preben Moan TRY Art Director
Camilla Bjørnhaug TRY Copywriter
Eirik Sørensen TRY Art Director
Finn Knudsen TRY Art Director
Morten Berger Karlsen TRY Copywriter
Morten Polmar TRY Account Director
Cathrine Wennersten TRY Account Manager
Annette Werner APT Digital Producer
Martin Klausen APT Webdesigner
Magnus Bergman APT Web Developer
Andreas Riiser Bacon OSL Director
Ola Narum Berg Bacon OSL Producer
Tommy Lybekk TRY Mac Designer

The Campaign

The solution was to perform a stunt where we wanted to demonstrate exceptional manoeuvring with a trailer in reverse at high speed – showing the benefit of the product a little bit exaggerated. This became online films posted on Facebook and YouTube - and later TVCs

Creative Execution

We split a car in two and built a trailer around it. The walls were see-through plexiglass covered with transparent foil, so that the driver could look out, but no one could look in. And then we let the trailer tow the Passat. This became online films that was targeted to certain target groups. Claim: Volkswagen Trailer Assist. Backing up with a trailer will be this easy. Well, almost. People could also visit a campaign site where they could book test drives directly from the page.

Results

The campaign reached the following results in a country with 5 million people:•We created a Facebook reach of more than 55 million•The behind-the scenes film had 41 million views on Facebook•1.100.000 liked it•696.000 shared it•130.000 commented it•The stunt and films were described in more than 250 online articles in more than 46 countries with more than 396 million potential readers.And most importantly:The following month the Passat (with Trailer Assist) sales were up 15%.

To promote the Trailer Assist feature we built a somewhat special trailer. People could experience the trailer 1:1 in the streets. But the documentation (the online films) were also targeted to specific groups of people. The audience could also book test drives directly from our campaign site.

We build the strategy on one basic insight: Most people find it difficult to reverse with a trailer, and hate to do it.A system that will help them out will obviously create attention. Since social media to a large degree is about entertainment, and surprising videos always create a large number of viewers and involvement we decided to move along that path.This gave us the communication strategy and the idea for the campaign. It was also our intention to meet people where they are – in the streets - creating buzz about the new feature.