Volkswagen’s ’T’ SUV Trials and Triumphs
Capturing the hearts and minds of car lovers, young and old, Volkswagen’s global brand kinship, has been built on entertaining and unique storytelling film-scenarios, over many years, beginning with the iconic ‘Beetle’ and ‘Kombi0 in the early 70’s, that continued in the 2000s’ with the introduction of their Tiguan, Touareg, T-Roc, T-Cross, and Taos, sports utility vehicles, for new generations of VW brand aficionados.
1. VW Tiguan, Unhappy Campers
Advertising Agency: adam&eveDDB, London, UK
Creative Directors: Matt Gay, and Feargal Ballance
Production Company: AKKURAT Studios, Berlin, Germany
Service Production Company: Chelsy Films, Vienna, Austria
Director of Photography: Franz Lustig
Masterly directed by the Novemba filmmaking duo of Blair MacDonald, and Oliver Clark, who elicit impressive performances from their cast, adam&eveDDB agency’s film-scenario of a spacious Tiguan providing shelter and comfort to a family’s disastrous camping holiday, of terrible weather, failing tents, bee stings, and mud pools, although partly portentous, is great fun to view.
2. VW Touareg Park Assist Pro, Laundry Services
Advertising Agency: DDB Voltage, Berlin, Germany
Chief Creative Officer:Tim Wettstein
Executive Creative Directors: Thomas Koch, and Sascha Dudic
Creative Director: Heitor Buchalla
Production Company: Film Deluxe, Berlin, Germany
Director of Photography: Roman Müellegger
Service Production Company: Groundglass, Cape Town, South Africa
Directed by filmmaker Kay Kienzler, and filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, DDB Voltage agency’s film-scenario, centres on the all too familiar struggle of motorists squeezing into tight parking spaces.
Observed from inside a laundry and repair services shop by its two owners, the frustration of people having to navigate extremely closely parked vehicles, often resulting in dirty clothes and torn outfits, are amusingly depicted in highly relatable scenes of ‘close encounters of the parking kind’, that call for for VW Touareg’s Park Assist Pro.
3. Volkswagen Taos, No Going Back
Advertising Agency: Johannes Leonardo, New York, USA
Executive Creative Director: Jonathan Santana
Associate Creative Directors: Julian Cohen, and Idriss Dabre
Design Director: Olga Vladova
Production Company: SMUGGLER, New York, USA
Post Production and VFX Studios: Blacksmith, New York, USA
Sound Design and Music Studios: Wave, New York, USA
For me the most effective automotive commercials are single-mindedly focussed on dramatising one outstanding feature of a vehicle, rather than featuring a catalogue of functions and options, that in a ‘day-after-recall’ test, I would be hard pressed to list.
Directed by lauded filmmaker Björn Rühmann, known for his sensitive and playfully unexpected film aesthetic, of elegantly crafted imagery, the understated humour of the ‘No Going Back’ VW Taos SUV scenario, I find insightfully appealing, and with a broad smile, very memorable.
4. VW T-Roc, Born Confident
Advertising Agency: adam&eveDDB, London, UK, and DDB Berlin/Hamburg, Germany
Group Chief Creative Officer: Ben Priest
Executive Creative Director: Rick Brim
Copywriter: Patrick McClelland
Art director: Feargal Ballance
Production Company: Somesuch, London, UK
VFX and Animation: Moving Picture Company, London UK
Sound Design Studios: 750mph, London, UK
Directed by filmmaker Nick Gordon, and filmed on the west coast of Sweden, in the Gothenburg area, the T-Roc commercial features ‘Bam the Ram’, who like Volkswagen’s smallest SUV, was born confident.
The masterly produced commercial, of the tough little ram, that exemplifies the confidence of Volkswagen’s crossover model, features a soundtrack of guitarist and singer, Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way”.
5. VW T-Cross, The Chase
Advertising Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town, South Africa
Chief Creative Officer: Pete Case
Executive Creative Director: Tseliso Rangaka
Associate Executive Creative Director: Nicholas Wittenberg
Creative Directors: Mike Martin, and Alex Goldberg
Associate Creative Director: Riaan Van Wyk
Production Company: Patriot Films, Cape Town, South Africa
Director of Photography: Devin Toselli
Post Production Studios: Left Post, Cape Town, South Africa
Sound Design Studios: The Workroom, Cape Town, South Africa
Ogilvy Cape Town agency’s inspired film-scenario of a young couple in a VW T-Cross, being relentlessly pursued by domineering parents demanding to know; ‘when are you getting married?, when are you settling down?, when are you having kids?’, et al, was brought to entertaining life by filmmaker and director Anton Visser.
The cinematically produced commercial, of the young couple being able to evade the parental pressures of societal conformity, in Volkswagen’s T-Cross SUV, is humorously dramatised with impressive portrayals, and great fun to view.
6. VW Tiguan Trailer Assist, Laughing Horses
Adverting Agency: Grabarz & Partner, Hamburg, Germany
Group Creative Director: Tobias Ahrens
Creative Directors: Matthias Preuß, and Jakob Eckstein
Copywriter: Paul Von Mühlendahl
Production Company: Czar, Berlin, Germany
Post Production and VFX Studios: Bacon X, Copenhagen, Denmark
Sound Design Studio: Funk, Berlin, Germany
The globally popular VW Trailer Assist commercial, directed by filmmaker Bart Timmer, features laughing horses that are amusingly watchable.
From being Volkswagen Germany’s most successful online commercial debut of all time motivating 40 million views, the Tiguan Trailer Assist scenario was flighted on TV to great acclaim, garnering a bevy of advertising awards that included the New York Festivals, The One Show, Epica, Eurobest, D&AD, Clio, Lia, Cannes, and ADCE.
7. VW Tiguan AllSpace, The Stork
AlmapBBDO, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Executive Creative Director: Bruno Prosperi
Creative Director: André Gola
Creative Team: Henrique Del Lama, and Fernando Duarte Silva
Production Company: Killer Films, New York, USA
Post Production Company: Casa Blanca, São Paulo, Brazil
To launch VW Brazil’s family-sized Tiguan SUV, AlmapBBDO agency’s film-scenario, inspired by the folkloric tales of the mythical baby-delivering Stork, was brought to entertaining and cinematic life, by filmmaker and director Claudio Borrelli, in a superbly produced commercial that with great charm, highlights the many features the Tiguan AllSpace has to offer families.
8. VW T-Roc, The Drive To Defy
Powerful characters make history. Defiant ones rewrite it.
Agency: Ogilvy, Cape Town, South Africa
Film Production Company: Bioscope Films, Cape Town, South Africa
Sound Design and Music Studios: Audio Militia, Johannesburg, South Africa
Post Production Company: Strangelove Studios, Cape Town, South Africa
Visual Effects and Animation Company: Sinister Studios, Johannesburg, South Africa
Volkswagen and Ogilvy’s ‘Drive To Defy’ T-Roc advertising campaign, celebrates resilience, self-belief and the people who embody the spirit of defiance that lives within us all, with a series of commercials that pay tribute to the unstoppable drive of local heroes, such as Major Mandisa Mfeka, South Africa’s first black female combat pilot.
Directed by filmmaker Fausto Becatti, the masterly produced portrayal of Mandisa’s determination to make her childhood dream come true, is a remarkable story of true grit and defying the odds.