THE REVERSED TRAILER

TitleTHE REVERSED TRAILER
BrandVOLKSWAGEN NORWAY/ HARALD A. MØLLER
Product/ServiceVOLKSWAGEN TRAILER ASSIST
Category H01. Integrated Multi-Platform Campaign (Online & Offline)
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 an 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. Claim: Volkswagen Trailer Assist. Backing up with a trailer will be this easy. Well, almost.

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%.

In the Norwegian market the majority of family cars are sold with a trailer hitch. Passat estate is segment leader, and most of them are equipped with this device.The target audience was adult men with a family and the need for a roomy car, which often also means from time to time a need of a trailer.We also build 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.