- Brand
- Volkswagen
- Media Type
- TV Commercial
- Viral
- Web Film
- Product Category
- Automotive
- Country
- USA
- Source
- News
- Agency
- Deutsch / Los Angeles
- Tags
- automotive
- Super Bowl
- viral
- Volkswagen Passat
- Star Wars
- Super Bowl XLV
The question of who'll win the online battle around Super Bowl XLV has a front-runner: VW.
One of Volkswagen's two Super Bowl spots, 'The Force', racked up a healthy cushion before the game, with a bevy of eyeballs before the opening kickoff.
The spot went live Wednesday, a full three days before the game, when it's slated to run in the second quarter, but had already reached a tremendous audience.
It's got two of the factors integral for online success: a cute kid and Star Wars tie-ins. In the spot, a junior Darth Vader attempts to use the force around the house. His midichlorian count is lacking until he gets out the driveway, where he is remarkably able to start the Passat Dad just pulled up in. Dad, fingering his keyless entry fob, looks on lovingly from the kitchen with mom while Lord Vader is understandably baffled.
'The traction Mini-Darth has gotten on the web is mind blowing', says Eric Springer, group creative director at Deutsch LA. 'We went from 100,000 views to over 1,000,000 in the first couple hours. Now, a little after 24 hours into Mini Darth's web life, we're up to 5.3 million. And counting.'
So how did that happen? 'It's one of those things you know you have a fun, powerful, engaging idea. And you execute the shit out of it with an amazing director like Lance Accord and release it into the wild,' Springer says. 'We do things like this with the best intentions and when it blows up and everyone embraces it, we get to sit back and simply say, "Oh, we meant to do that." But seriously I'd have to say we're really fortunate to have a double whammy of pop culture to work with. Somewhere there's a group of 40-year-old men dressed in their Darth Vader outfits huddled around their computer watching this commercial and crying. Hold on, I think we just came up with spot #2 in the campaign.'
Springer says the remit hasn't been expanded or changed to include a more fun tone, which one might imagine after watching work like DDB Stockholm's 'Fun Theory', it's just getting more consistent. 'VW invented fun in the '60s with the voice of a campaign that changed our industry,' Springer says. 'VW made it fun to sell stuff. Couple that with the fact that VW has always made fun stuff (cars) to sell. At Deutsch, we've only had the VW account in North America for a little over a year, and fun is part of an internal mantra for all our work.'
One of Volkswagen's two Super Bowl spots, 'The Force', racked up a healthy cushion before the game, with a bevy of eyeballs before the opening kickoff.
The spot went live Wednesday, a full three days before the game, when it's slated to run in the second quarter, but had already reached a tremendous audience.
It's got two of the factors integral for online success: a cute kid and Star Wars tie-ins. In the spot, a junior Darth Vader attempts to use the force around the house. His midichlorian count is lacking until he gets out the driveway, where he is remarkably able to start the Passat Dad just pulled up in. Dad, fingering his keyless entry fob, looks on lovingly from the kitchen with mom while Lord Vader is understandably baffled.
'The traction Mini-Darth has gotten on the web is mind blowing', says Eric Springer, group creative director at Deutsch LA. 'We went from 100,000 views to over 1,000,000 in the first couple hours. Now, a little after 24 hours into Mini Darth's web life, we're up to 5.3 million. And counting.'
So how did that happen? 'It's one of those things you know you have a fun, powerful, engaging idea. And you execute the shit out of it with an amazing director like Lance Accord and release it into the wild,' Springer says. 'We do things like this with the best intentions and when it blows up and everyone embraces it, we get to sit back and simply say, "Oh, we meant to do that." But seriously I'd have to say we're really fortunate to have a double whammy of pop culture to work with. Somewhere there's a group of 40-year-old men dressed in their Darth Vader outfits huddled around their computer watching this commercial and crying. Hold on, I think we just came up with spot #2 in the campaign.'
Springer says the remit hasn't been expanded or changed to include a more fun tone, which one might imagine after watching work like DDB Stockholm's 'Fun Theory', it's just getting more consistent. 'VW invented fun in the '60s with the voice of a campaign that changed our industry,' Springer says. 'VW made it fun to sell stuff. Couple that with the fact that VW has always made fun stuff (cars) to sell. At Deutsch, we've only had the VW account in North America for a little over a year, and fun is part of an internal mantra for all our work.'
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