Volkswagen Routan Boom -
Brand: Routan (Volkswagen)
Execution: TV, Online, Print
Target: Parents
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri
Description:
To promote its new minivan, the Routan, Volkswagen agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky created a mock-documentary featuring Brooke Shields entitled “Routan Boom.” The four-minute online documentary anchors a campaign also featuring tv spots and print ads. The premise of the documentary is that couples are having children just to have an excuse to get the “German engineering” found in the Routan. The various couples Brooke Shields approaches all deny this, but she is unconvinced.
What Works:
This campaign brims with ironic humor. Brooke Shields excels in her deadpan impersonation of a documentary reporter unflustered by the lack of any real story. It is very difficult to imagine many spots for a minivan having any interest past the core viewership of parents currently shopping for a new car, but this spot expands the pool. It has been successful in drawing some media attention and blog posts.
What Doesn’t:
The premise of the spot may have a fatal flaw. As Autoblog notes, “It’s likely that the Routan is a perfectly fine minivan, maybe even markedly better than the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country, but does VW honestly think people won’t realize it’s true origins?” Premising an advertising campaign - even a satirical one - on a factually incorrect concept is deceptive and will not help Volkswagen in a time of great hostility to automakers.
Branding Bottom Line:
The Volkswagen Routan is actually Mili Vanili.
November 24th, 2008 at 2:01 am
I like the idea that they did a mock-documentary. I haven’t seen the documentary, so I can’t give any conclusive opinions about its content. I do, however, think that fact-based advertising sells. And a documentary certainly could be considered “fact-based.”
I’d like to know, what’s the big idea of this campaign? That matters more than humor or glamour.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I wrote about this on my VW blog, the ad campaign is pretty nifty, though the talking VW Bug is a little obnoxious. These spots are everything, grabbing bundles of attention. Brooke really plays to the camera as she ignores the expecting couples, especially during the funny “we’re right here” moment they have with Shield’s back.
By the way, notice hot young and attractive the expecting couples are in those spots, gotta love Hollywood!
December 10th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
This campaign is great. I love the comment fact-based advertising sells? That begs the question what are facts? Your fatal flaw is that people care about the product as much as a brand manager does, or as much as autoblog does. People don’t know that much about the cars they buy, they always claim that they know more than they do. The car looks nice, and the ad wasn’t immediately dismissed, which so much fact based advertising does. Plus the VW target most likely gets the humor, while boring Caravan starts to wonder why isn’t this fact based?
May 19th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I’ve been in the marketing and sales field for years. The idea created by Volkswagen worked. It started to make people think about the position these Volkswagen’s have in peoples life styles and separates them from the competition in a creative way.
September 5th, 2009 at 12:26 am
The campaign must be doing pretty well because its really the only van I know by name!