Volkswagen once again wins the esteemed honor of Advertiser of the Year for the third straight year. Volkswagen swept the New York Festivals International Advertising Awards with a spectacular cache of thirteen Gold Medals, three Silver Medals, four Bronze Medals and twenty-three Finalist Certificates.
Highlights of the formidable campaigns crafted for Volkswagen include:
DDB/ Germany/Dusseldorf took home the Gold Medal for their “Shadow Poster” Billboard Campaign for Volkswagen’s Eos Convertible. DDB’s ingenious premise — who’s more qualified to advertise a convertible than the sun? The billboard, the world’s first shadow poster, invited the consumer to test drive the Eos Convertible by casting the shadow “Perfect Day For A Test Drive” onto city streets, sidewalks, and in a grassy park. This innovative idea increased the number of Volkswagen test drives by 12%.
Volkswagen Service struck gold with DDB Berlin GmbH’s “The Motherf… Ringtone”, taking the Gold Medal for their Consumer Promotions Campaign. This humorous campaign targeted owners who were tempted to use parts other than genuine Volkswagen parts — while the car might look fine from the outside, one can get some very unpleasant surprises later on. The spot begins with an elderly couple eating dinner in silence. As their authentic cuckoo clock announces the hour, instead of a traditional cuckoo bird, a Flavor Flav type rapper-cuckoo emerges, screaming “o Motherf…Yo Motherf…” The spot advises to “Better choose genuine Volkswagen parts. So your Volkswagen stays a Volkswagen.” The final frame offers viewers the option to download their own “Yo Motherf…” ringtone. When consumers downloaded the ringtone, a virus-like program temporarily changed their phone to a foreign language. Eventually, their phone goes back to normal, with the ring tone installed and leaving them with the reminder to always know what your are installing. During this campaign, the ringtone was downloaded 78,000 times and traffic at Volkswagen Service was up 25%.
DDB Berlin garnered two Gold Medals for Humor and Consumer Products for their hilarious viral marketing campaign for Volkswagen Golf. The campaign, “Schlammer’s Quest”, was created to reload Volkswagen’s image in Germany as “the people’s car”. A story line was created using a fictional character to represent the people’s man, the common German, Horst Schlammer. The story line follows Horst, a journalist, who is single because he can’t drive. A video blog platform was created to make the story come alive, following Horst through eight weeks of driving lessons before taking his driving test. No one knew Volkswagen was involved in the campaign until later on, when Horst began car shopping. Within one week, Horst was #2 on the German blog charts, then #1 on the podcast charts. The story was covered in magazines, newspapers and television; Horst’s adventures were documented in a feature length film and were also available on DVD. Click rates increased 50-80K clicks a day, making this campaign Germany’s most successful viral campaign. And over the course of eight weeks, podcasts and media appearances drove Volkswagen right into the people’s hearts.
Winning Medalists and Finalists from 56 countries were honored in this year’s International Advertising Awards competition which was held at the ultra modern New World Stage. To view the complete list of this year’s Award winning work please visit http://newyorkfestivals.com.
The New York Festivals International Advertising Awards receives entries from 70 countries. There were a total of 246 creative directors from 48 countries on the 2008 NYF Grand Jury which ensured that the jury was diversified, and the judging system was fair and void of any influence from outspoken judges because all of the judging took place online. Additionally, jury members were prohibited from voting on work from their own agency and all fake ads were expelled from the competition.
About the New York Festivals:
The New York Festivals (NYF) oversees six international awards competitions: Television and Radio Advertising; Design, Print and Outdoor Advertising; Film & Video; Television Broadcasting; Radio Broadcasting; and now Interactive & Alternative Media. Entries to each of the competitions are judged around the world by panels of peers in their respective industries. In addition, NYF also oversees three stand-alone international competitions: The Midas Awards for financial services communications, the Global Awards for healthcare Communications and the AME Awards for advertising and marketing effectiveness. Founded in 1957, NYF now has representation in 62 countries. For more information, go to www.newyorkfestivals.com.
