Recession seems to be looming large on everyone’s mind. Even a brand like Volkswagen has decided to talk about value for money. Instead of emphasizing on luxury, comfort, design and speed their latest Banknote campaign talks straight about money and savings. They have actually used banknotes of different denominations and stamped them with different distances to show how far one can travel in Bluemotion Volkswagen for the money one spends on fuel.

The Volkswagen Banknote campaign is very innovative, creative and appropriate for the financially difficult times. It is good thinking since it would be futile and obscene to talk about luxury and pleasure when everything from fuel to car has become unaffordable. Volkswagen subtly promises the true value for money that their customers can expect. The message of more distance for less money is direct and clear.

This thinking is not surprising since automobile industry is among the worst hit by financial crunch and advertising revenues are hit too. This campaign is very simple and wouldn’t have cost the company a lot. One can’t help but wonder is there a need of flashy expensive campaigns with celebrity brand ambassadors to sell the cars?

Via Invisible Red

Recently, in a bid to take a shot at the concept of viral marketing, one of the leading automotive firms, Volkswagen decided to conduct a viral video campaign, as part of its advertisement package. The theory behind this highly creative project was to test whether people would be willing to participate in activities for the environment, that they usually feel lazy about, if those tasks became more fun.

Well, the plan worked splendidly and the video series, that is comprised of three videos on YouTube is making headlines in the world of advertising and viral marketing. The entire project had been initiated and carried out by DDB, an advertising agency based in Stockholm.

According to Andreas Dahlqvist (Creative Director, DDB), “Volkswagen’s answer to the theory will be presented at a later stage on a separate website amongst other media. The site will display their whole range of environment technologies and cars—many, many fun ways to do something for the environment.”

Whether or not this immensely popular video series is able to boost the car maker’s sales, is anybody’s guess, but one thing is for sure, the online world is sure buzzing about Volkswagen and its ingenuity.

Here are some of the videos from the campaign, to tickle your funny bone:

Piano Staircase

The World’s Deepest Bin

Bottle Bank Arcade Machine

Via Rolighetsteorin & Viral Blog.

Creative advertising is no doubt inspired by art and very often we see creative teams paying tribute to rare art through the copies they create for different brands. For instance advertising agency DDB New Zealand has used sketches of renowned graphic artist Mauritz Escher for the latest Volkswagen VW4Motion ad campaign.

A car doesn’t really fit in these intriguing Escher drawings which create terrific illusion using many stairs and water but the message is right there about appeal and challenge of the impossible and unreal motion. Escher’s themes were related to motion and he created awesome illusions with movements. Look at all three prints. The stairs seem to be all wrapped up and even the water seems to be all wrapped up. The stairs, water seem to be going up as well as coming down.

Such fantastic art needs to be brought into public memory time and again and kudos to the creative teams who use these images to create copies. They may face criticisms for not being original and using other’s art. But advertising is an art of selling and it does not really matter if they use great artist works as long as they give due credit and make the copy relevant. It is refreshing indeed to see such images crop up in a time when the modern world is obsessed with the present. They remind us of creative geniuses of the past!

Via Advertolog

Concept Cars can have really crazy design and most of them vary in a spectrum whose one end is unrealistic future models that need no roads to move around and the other end is old ripped off car remakes that still seem to be stuck in the late 70’s. Designing a concept car is by no means easy and it seems every designer is going out of his way to give it some unique feature that helps it stand out from the crowd. The Volkswagen Rocca is another hallucination from a designer which will never come to life for sure. But its unique mix of metal with wood has really caught our eye and impressed us to an extent.

The Volkswagen Concept Car sports a wooden hood and a wooden roof that is so well matched with the metal bodywork of the car that it actually looks more classy than weird. This of course is not a new marriage of vividly different materials as the best yachts and luxury cruises in the world use the exact same combination. The long drawn out look also adds a touch of regal elegance to the design. It is almost like a stretch limo for Pinocchio!

The car’s extended design is apparently to protect the engine in case of a collision. The luggage space is actually in front of the engine ensuring that the engine sticks in the middle safely. So what happens in a rear end crash? You lose your life, that simple. But we somehow still like the design for its sheer imagination. Very charming indeed!

Via: Cardesign