Creative Social Media Advertising – Volkwagen

2009 has seen creative advertising campaigns involve social media more than ever before; from paid-for blogging scandals to questionable trending topics 2009 has embraced social media! Companies are becoming more creative with brand image and campaigns are going ‘viral’; considering this it is no wonder that companies are targeting the online community more than ever. This has been heavily aided by YouTube and social bookmarking sites which allow websters to easily find and share interesting content.

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One of my favourites this year was the Volkwagen Tiguan campaign, where a search was launched to find the ‘People’s Reviewer’. The VW search was to find someone that wasn’t a paid professional or journalist to review the Tiguan 4×4 and over a 1000 peopleapplied for the challenge

The Challenge : Successful applicants took part in a week long test drive, with 3 subsequent heats. Each challenger produced a film per heat which was uploaded to the website and voted on by viewers; with the winners from each heat being invited to the final.

The Final : Involved professionally shot films entries shot from various locations.

The Result : The People’s Reviewer site received 251,411 visits during the competition, 50,000 video views and their social media contacts reached 2.2 million.

Kieron Matthews, marketing director at the Internet Advertising Bureau, praised the campaign saying:

“It’s great to see VW handing the opportunity to ordinary people to review their new Tiguan using online. The campaign was brilliantly delivered and ever so much more believable than the car traversing a mountain range in Switzerland in a TV ad.”

For some companies handing over this level of advertising control in favour of brand transparency would be a frightening task, however with 2010 fast approaching I predict that this type of user-driven ad campaigns will only grow in popularity as they not only spread quickly but (if done properly) can really influence brand loyalty.

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