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20 years ago Volkswagen created a monster. In 1984, VW introduced the GTI, giving birth to Hot Hatch culture, and along with it came a new breed of car owner: the tuner. Fast forward to present day where, in any parking lot in America you can find one of these tuner's "pimped" rides: a tacky economy car adorned with ostentatious racing decorations applied with little regard for taste or performance. With the Un-pimp campaign Volkswagen sought to get tuner culture back on track, and reassert the dominance of German Engineering, as represented in all it's glory by the 200 HP VW GTI.
Videos on YouTube showed German Engineers ruthlessly "un-pimping" tuner mobiles, and teaching their owners about the new GTI.
At VWFeatures.com we created a GTI Configurator that let visitors customize their GTI's with all the available features, after which they could take their pre-tuned whip on a virtual joyride with the beautiful German Engineer, Helga.
We also brought Helga to life by creating a Myspace page for her, featuring a profile, a soundboard, ring tones, a question and answer section, and pictures of her on vacation. As of the present date she has over 8,400 friends.
Another key component of the campaign was the creation of the "V-Dub" hand signal. This sign has become a cultural phenomenon of its own among the Volkswagen family and across eBay and enthusiaest sites like VWVortex.com. Banners brought the car and its features to life and put the german pre-tuned car into the hands of users.
Banners also featured headlines referencing the German Heritage, and performance of the GTI with lines such as Fast as schnell, German engineering in da haus, and Auf Wiedersehen, sucka.
- During the first month of the campaign alone GTI sales were nearly 80% above VW sales forecasts.
- YTD GTI sales for 2006 were up 126% over 2005.
- Around the time of its launch, The Fast figure was selling for over $600 on eBay.
- Even today, the Fast figure sells for a top-bid of approx. $100 on eBay.
- The Fast has over 62,000 friends on MySpace.com.
- The spot has been viewed approximately 6.6 million times on Youtube.com. |
