Volkswagen: Find your Volkswagen Match

VW uses matchmaking functionality to help shoppers find their dream car based on whatever they're looking for. Whether a particular model, feature, colour, or even price. Then it pairs them with new or used Volkswagen cars in their area. Each car even has its own profile page with images, features, specs, and payment estimator that's more than 80,000 unique profile pages, and more than 10 million possible configured images. Agency: Deutsch LA. 

http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/62360/Volkswagen-Find-Your-Volkswagen-Match

Mercedes Engines Roar in ‘Sound With Power’ Mashups

Lisa Lacy  |  November 14, 2013   |  0 Comments

There's no sound quite like a Mercedes-Benz engine. That's partially the premise behind an interactive audio-visual experience from integrated production company B-Reel and ad agency AMV BBDO.

The experience, Sound With Power, enables users to create audio mashups by combining the purr of the Mercedes E63 AMG engine with multiple sounds - ranging from performers like Tinie Tempah and Sub Focus to children's classic Stingray, as well as everyday sounds - which ultimately all play in sync.

The site launched in early October. Reps for B-Reel and AMV BBDO did not have usage stats. A Mercedes rep was not available for comment.

To create a mashup, users start with the sound of the engine and choose between a track from Tinie Tempah or Stingray to layer over it. Users are then given the option to add one of two additional sounds, which is layered on top of the mix and so on and so forth as the user decides between additional tracks featuring sounds like thunder or roller coasters.

The site features dozens of potential combinations, reps say.

"The idea was to recognize that all sorts of sounds have emotional power [including] music and other sounds such as babies," says Martin Loraine, copywriter at AMV BBDO. "[We ask users to] interact and choose the most emotionally powerful sounds...it's a really engaging, fun experience."

Further, the audience's ability to choose between older favorites like Dusty Springfield, as well as newer tunes, helps the experience resonate closer and result in "a nice mix of memories and choices," adds Alex Jenkins, creative director at B-Reel.

"It works best when you pull a range of different pieces of music together," Loraine says. "That's the thing about sounds and emotions...they're random [on the site] and don't go together, but they're emotional, like thunder mixed with orchestral strings mixed with a sitar. These are things that have no reason or right to go together, but create a really brilliant piece of music with an emotional response."

B-Reel says it created a "fully responsive and intuitive platform that enables seamless and simultaneous playback of multiple video clips across all desktop and mobile platforms."

The system adjusts the size and quality of the videos to individual hardware and browsers and synchronizes the video clips to the audio.

"It proved a significant technical challenge, but the results speak for themselves with a perfectly synced and fluid experience for the audience," B-Reel adds.

Some shots below:

Renault launches interactive cross-platform campaign with Microsoft Advertising

Car manufacturer Renault is set to launch a new cross-platform campaign with Microsoft Advertising to bring to life its current ‘Life Designed’ campaign.

Created to showcase Renault’s 'people-centric' design philosophy, ‘the cycle of life’ campaign will launch this week with an immersive Ads-in-Apps solution. Adverts will run inside a number of Windows 8 applications on both desktop and tablet.

The interactive experience has been optimised for touch devices and will encourage consumers to engage in ‘the cycle of life’ philosophy, with the aim that they will discover the concept car that represents each step, including love, wisdom, play, work, family and exploration.

Organised into the shape of a flower, each step can be explored in the ad by interactive steps such as tracing the outline of a heart to access the “love” hub, and revealing the matching concept car.

The campaign will drive consumers to the Renault website, where they will find more information on the car maker’s models as previewed in the Ads-in-Apps solution.

Matt Lamprell, digital brand communications manager for Renault UK, said: “We were looking for a way to bring our 'Life Designed' campaign to life - telling the story of useful design across the Renault range.

“The Ads-in-Apps campaign on Windows 8 provides a stunningly beautiful and engaging platform through which we're able to highlight Renault's chief designer Laurens van den Acker's 'cycle of life' concept and the way that our cars and vans combine both style and functionality.”

The ads will be served in all Bing- and Xbox-branded apps on Windows 8, as well as a network of certified third-party apps relevant to Renault’s target audience.

The Ads-in-Apps creative is the second phase of a partnership between the two companies, following sponsored editorial content that launched on the MSN Lifestyle channel in January.

Alfa Strakhovanie: Crush The Speed

Audi UK: Paint Battle

http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/57471/Audi-UK-Paint-Battle

Hino Trucks: Hino Gym

Volkswagen: Park It

Volkswagen: Walk Off The Earth

Click between three different versions of the Walk Off The Earth song, "Gang of Rhythm". Each button brings you to a different location, with a different Beetle, and a different version of the song -- all in the same video. Walk Off The Earth - who put themselves on the map with their cover of the song, "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye - partnered with Volkswagen Canada to create this interactive video. Each version features a unique arrangement of the song, and a different Beetle to match: The Beetle GSR, The Beetle Convertible, and The Super Beetle. Agency: Red Urban, Toronto. 

Dodge Durango: Hands On Ron Burgundy

 

NISSAN CREATES OCULUS RIFT EXPERIENCE TO ENTICE YOUNGER CONSUMERS

BY: AD AGE STAFF, PUBLISHED: DEC 05, 2013

E-mail | Print |

Young consumers are into technology -- but cars, not so much. So Nissan is reaching out to digital natives by bringing them into the car design process and giving them a hot new virtual reality technology to play with.

At the Tokyo Motor Show, the Japanese car company handed people virtual reality goggles designed by California startup Oculus VR. The company promises to bring the gaming world, among other things, to a whole new level by immersing audiences fully within a virtual environment via its Oculus Rift headset.

In the case of Nissan, the googles plunged participants into a virtual 3D world where they designed a concept car. Nissan is working on a theme it calls co-creation -- including consumers in the car development process -- and the VR game echoes that idea.

"We want to engage digital natives, people who would maybe not be interested in cars, or who expressed less passion for cars going forward, and co-creation allows us to engage them in a unique way, to bring them inside the process of vehicle development," said Nissan's global head of digital strategy, DeLu Jackson.

Young consumers aren't buying as many cars as older generations, though there's debate about whether it's because of economic pressures or because cars are losing some cache.

AKQA London worked with Nissan on the Oculus project, which Mr. Jackson described as "an interesting way to tell the story of what we do as a company, but also what the future looks like."

In the experience, participants start out with a chassis and build onto it by making choices about what to explore in the virtual world.

For example, in a scene featuring hot air balloons and kayaks in a river, people who gravitate toward the balloons signal a desire for comfort and elegance, while choosing kayaks signifies adventure.

The car design is adjusted based on each choice, and viewers come away with a virtual model car to explore inside and out. The game was part of Nissan's auto show kiosk showing off two concept coupes, the sporty IDx NISMO and the sleek IDx Freeflow.

The Oculus Rift headset is still in development for the mass market, but since AKQA invested in the project through Kickstarter, it was given an early prototype to play with.

AKQA was experimenting with Oculus at the same it was exploring auto show concepts for Nissan, said Andy Hood, AKQA's executive creative development director. Combining the two was natural.

"One of Nissan's messages is 'innovation that excites,' … so the pairing of the two was particularly nice," Mr. Hood said.

The technology uses no handset, just goggles, and viewers navigate the game through eye movement alone.

The whole process takes five or six minutes. One challenge was having such a short time to explain to people accustomed to screens that the virtual world exists all around them, even behind them, Mr. Hood said. Designers introduced that concept by having a hummingbird fly right up to people's faces, forcing them to move around to dodge it.

Another challenge was "learning how far to push it before it starts to become too much roller coaster," he said.

More than 1,500 people tried the game at the Tokyo show that ended Dec. 1, some queuing for 70 minutes, AKQA said.

Mr. Hood imagines many applications for Oculus beyond gaming -- for example, schoolchildren learning about the Civil War "wouldn't have to sit and talk about what it's like to be at Gettysburg, (they) could actually be at Gettysburg."

He expects to see a lot of the technology in the next 18 months. "It's one of those things like iPhone apps," he said. "Once people start to see the possibilities, I can imagine the floodgates are about to open."

http://creativity-online.com/news/nissan-is-making-cars-sexy-for-young-consumers-oculus-rift/245555

BMW i3 Electric Car: 360-Degree Interactive Film Just a few days after I posted what was one of the first 360-Degree Interactive Film Examples, this launches… ‘Become Electric’ an Interactive 360-Degree Film created to launch the brand new,BMW i3 Electric Car, and it’s a hell of a launch, I suspect, a car has never been before been released quite like this, across both iTunes and Google Play interactive apps. The story follows a typical Hollywood-style movie, emulating quality too, but once loaded onto your iPhone or iPad, every movement and every interaction lets you dig deeper into the journey and ultimately the car. The ultimate test-drive. Created by WCRS, Mustard Films and Tool.

Trace Your Road - Lexus Online Advert

A video game becomes real when you have an F1 driver and some interactive tools...

BMW i3 launches with world's first interactive 360° film via WCRS + Mustard Films + Tool

http://www.campaignbriefasia.com/2013/09/bmw-i3-launches-with-worlds-fi.html

WCRS, as part of EngineDare, has teamed with Mustard Films and Tool to create the world's first interactive 360° film for the launch of BMW's first electric car, the BMW i3.

The BMW i3 is the first model within the BMW i range and combines intelligent lightweight engineering and premium sustainable materials, with the pure pleasure and thrill of fully-electric driving.  

VIEW THE TRAILER

And to advertise the arrival of the world's most innovative electric car, BMW commissioned an equally innovative mobile experience. This takes the form of the 'virtual test-drive', an interactive film for smartphone and tablets shot by Emmy Award-winning director, Jason Zada.

The unique short film invites users to assume the position of driver and supporting actor in a dramatic, fast-paced race to save the world. Shot in 360 degrees and using 360 degree sound, the film allows the user to explore a fully immersive environment and interact with the action.

To achieve 360° interactivity, Tool's developers used OpenGL to project the film on a sphere. OpenAL was leveraged to integrate multiple layers of audio - including background music, ambient sounds and dialogue - into an immersive sound experience that changes dynamically based on the user's directional interaction.

Standing at the intersection of film, advertising, gaming and digital marketing, the app delivers an experience unlike any other, placing consumers at the very heart of the BMW i3 product and BMW i brand.

Throughout the film hotspots allow people to find out more about the BMW i3. At the end viewers are prompted to Become Electric and sign up to experience a real test drive.

The new smartphone and tablet app was developed as a native app and will be available on the Apple platform from 9th September with an Android version to follow.

The new BMW i3 is the first model within the BMW i range.  Built from the ground up, the BMW i3 combines intelligent lightweight engineering and premium sustainable materials with the pure pleasure and thrill of fully-electric driving.

Download the app here

Says Nicola Green, BMW i communications manager: "It was very important for us that our marketing activities reflected the innovative nature of the BMW i3.  This is just one of a number of bold steps we have taken in our communications approach to support the launch of this car and we really wanted to push the boundaries with this interactive film, to provide users with a truly unique, exciting and innovative experience which ultimately would encourage them to test drive the car."

Says Ross Neil, creative director at WCRS: "The BMW i3 is a truly amazing car that is right at the cutting edge of innovation and so we wanted to create communications that reflected this. Our idea was to create the first ever 360° virtual test drive film. By producing it as an App for mobile and tablets we were able to put the viewer in control and give them a unique, personalised experience that would entertain as well as allow them to experience the car, ultimately helping them on their own journey to Become Electric."

Says Matt Hichens, executive producer at Mustard: "The BMW i3 film and app has been an amazing, forward thinking, creative project. Director Jason Zada worked closely with the creative team Dan, Rachel and Ross during pre-production to bring the first, 360° all-action car narrative to life. It was innovative and technically demanding in respect to managing the live action logistics, the car chase and storyline within the 360 degree filming techniques but an enjoyable ride. Overall it's been great to see this ground breaking, digital production come together so smoothly and to finish with a brilliant piece of communication."

Says Jason Zada, director at Mustard/Tool: "Become Electric is a step in the evolution of storytelling and brand engagement. It's an interactive film that puts you in complete control of saving the world. You are at the wheel of the new BMW i3 electric car for almost the entire film, all while being immersed in a big Hollywood-style movie. "

Client: BMW UK for BMWi
Title: Become Electric
Agency: WCRS
Creative Director: Ross Neil
Senior Creatives: Dan Gorlov & Rachel Le Feuvre
Agency Producer: Joseph Pawsey
Account Handling: Henry Debenham
Media Agency:  Vizeum
Production Company: Mustard Films/Tool
Director: Jason Zada (Mustard Films/Tool)
Executive Producers: Matt Hichens /Brian Latt & Dustin Callif (Mustard Films/Tool)
Producer: Nick Papworth (Mustard Films)
Editor: Guy Savin (Marshall Street)
Post-Production: Glassworks
Audio: Mophonics, Los Angeles and 750mph, London
Exposure: App, Digital, Social, Press

Golf GTI: Volkswagen Bannerbahn

Dutch agency Achtung created this interactive idea to catch a GTI on the 'Volkswagen Bannerbahn'. It challenges the user to catch a Volkswagen Golf GTI by clicking on it.

http://www.bestadsontv.com/ad/56699/Golf-GTI-Volkswagen-Bannerbahn

Audi South Africa: #AudiA3Exchange

In the first half of 2013, an 18-wheeler truck drove across South Africa, guided by the tweets of hopeful South Africans. Inside the truck: a new Audi A3 Sportback. Outside: a social media frenzy. The Idea: Audi A3 Exchange. An opportunity for people to exchange their own car for the new Audi A3 that was inside the truck.
The campaign launched with TV, radio, online and the truck itself, all sending people to our microsite or mobi-site. Here people could enter, choose their Exchange City and monitor the truckâs progress in real time. Agency: Ogilvy & Mather Cape Town

After 3 weeks, more than 50 000 tweets guided the Exchange Truck to its final destination â Joâburg. Three finalists were put through a series of challenges. Each challenge was designed to demonstrate a feature of the new A3. The finalist who completed all four challenges in the fastest time got to exchange their car for the new Audi A3 Sportback.

Over the 3 week campaign period, 11 310 people entered to exchange their own car. The campaign generated over 50 437 tweets and Audi South Africa was trending on Twitter within 5 hours of the campaign going live. Audi South Africa increased their Twitter following by 68% in 3 weeks and generated R3 116 654 worth of earned media. And, most importantly, the interest in the A3 Sportback on the Audi website tripled, resulting in more than 100 real life test drives per week.

Land Rover Unveils Huge TV and Digital Push
Vehicle's Print Ads are Interactive 

http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/land-rover-unveils-huge-tv-and-digital-push-152181

Land Rover is launching a considerable integrated campaign this week for its 2014 Range Rover Sport that entails inspiration-minded TV spots, an interactive game called "Race the Sun" and iAds, among other elements. All told, per the brand, the effort—dubbed "Driven To Another Level"—represents the automaker's biggest push ever.

The commercials feature very little copy, letting the viewers focus on breathtaking shots as a Range Rover Sport climbs Pikes Peak. A :30 will debut on broadcast and cable this week, while :60 and :90 versions will appear online. Sister agencies Y&R and Wunderman created the spots, while Mindshare handled the media buying.

"The innovation in the TV spot lies in its story line," said Kim McCullough, Land Rover's North America brand vp. "The spot re-creates the real-life feat that Range Rover Sportachieved when it set the world record for a production-standard [SUV] on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb course earlier this summer."

In terms of TV, the Range Rover will be featured in branded content on weeks-old Fox Sports 1. The programs will entail two drivers competing in all-terrain contests while commandeering a Range Rover Sport.

The aforementioned Race the Sun game will go live in the next week or so. Accessible via mobile or desktop, the game virtually puts the viewer in the vehicle's driver's seat while experiencing five driving scenarios. Components involve testing different speeds, agility, off-road handling and abilities to check out the vehicle's interior and exterior features.

The Britain-based brand's iAd promos will run on mobile sites for major publishers such as The New York Times, while letting people who click through watch videos and customize a Range Rover Sport. And Web banners appearing on sites such as ESPN.com let viewers virtually steer the vehicle as it weaves through scenic landscapes. Also, Land Rover will sponsor infographics on Slate, appear in ads via The Washington Post's Topic.ly platform and be seen in online promos via Kelley Blue Book.

Land Rover is also investing mightily in print this November while zeroing in on the male demographic. Five-page spreads in Wired, Esquire and Car & Driver will feature image-recognition technology that lets readers wave their smartphone over the ad to get more information about the vehicle on their device.

Other print and banner ads will run in Architectural Digest, The Wall Street Journal and Robb Report. One example of the copy being planned: "All the Most Dominant Species Start Out in the Wilderness."

For McCullough & Co., it's all about interactivity.

"Today, consumers build their opinions of brands based on how they present themselves in digital, social and mobile, as well as the value they offer in these channels," McCullough said. "The most innovative aspect of the digital creative is its interactive nature and [it] enables consumers to actually experience multiple aspects of how the [Range Rover Sport] drives from their desktop, smartphone or tablet."

An Inside Look at Nissan’s Vine and Instagram Video TV Commercial

by Amina Elahi - Jul. 29, 2013 at 8:00 am

By now, brands’ use of micro-video apps Vine and Instagram video is well-documented. Tapping into networks full of smartphone users hungry for visual content has given brands yet another way to reach and interact with their customers. Yet even as companies scramble to create mini-films to delight and entertain their audiences, who those clips reach is typically limited to mobile device users.

Despite the rise of new media, traditional advertising platforms maintain their vast reach and offer something else Vine and Instagram video don’t: frequency. Whereas, in advertising terms, reach refers to the number of people who see an ad, frequency denotes how many times each individual is exposed to it. For advertisers, both metrics are important, and achieving balance between them is a key goal. While Vine and Instagram are natural environments for such content, each video is likely to be seen only once by a brand’s followers.

In an effort to reach target consumers as well as the rest of America, Nissan USA is running a first-of-its-kind contest that will feature fans’ Vines and Instagram videos in an upcoming 30-second TV spot. Fans of the Nissan Versa Note can visitYourDoorToMore.com to grab printable elements that must be included in their Vine or Instagram video entries. The videos should focus on the entrants’ passions, include the Versa Note printable elements, and be tagged #VersaVid. Six people will win $1,000 Amazon.com gift cards, while three Grand Prize winners’ videos will also be chosen by the marketing team and incorporated into the TV commercial.

Nissan’s Director of Interactive and Social Media Marketing, Erich Marx, is one of the drivers of this campaign. We recently spoke with him to discuss the strategy and logistics behind the commercial.

Having Fun With It

The “Your Door To More” campaign is part of a media push to introduce the new generation of Nissan’s popular hatchback, the Versa, to the nation. Around the world, the same car is known as the Note, and Marx says the new name is a nod to the car’s global success. He also says having a young, active, and single target market opened the door for a fun approach.

“We were intrigued by this micro-video platform. Six seconds — what could you possibly do with six seconds that’s compelling?” Marx says. “But Vine is almost exclusively used by a younger, Millennial demographic. That’s an interesting alignment with our strategy.”

Originally, the marketing plan only included Vine, but with a week to go before the campaign launch, Instagram video came out. Realizing the potential to reach even more people, Marx and his team delayed the contest to make room for the new video tool. At press time, Instagram videos created for Nissan numbered 19, while Viners have created 30.

To Marx, giving Millennials an opportunity to cleverly express themselves in as little as six seconds is a fun challenge. Judging by some of the entries so far, users are taking the opportunity for TV air time seriously. The most creative videos feature stop motion, props and sound effects.

Length Matters

In the raging social media debate surrounding Instagram video vs. Vine, there has been much speculation about which platform will win out in the end. According to Marx, this contest is a mini-experiment testing that. “I think a lot of people felt that Instagram was better because it gives you 15 seconds,” Marx says. “It’s a much bigger challenge than you think.”

Consider that most standard TV ads run in 15 or 30-second formats, sandwiched between full-length content. On mobile platforms where everything is served in bite-sized chunks, 15 seconds can feel like an eternity. Based on contest entries to date, it seems fans prefer the shorter Vine format as well.

Tapping Social to Drive Everything

Although the VersaVids will eventually make their way to TV, Marx and his team are soliciting entries through Nissan’s existing social networks. Using Twitter, Facebookand Google Plus, the Nissan social team is inviting over three million fans to participate. That, plus a bit of paid social advertising, is what Marx hopes will get lots of great entries.

For a campaign so centered around social, it’s no surprise that Marx’s measure of success is based on similar metrics. “We’re looking to drive tens of millions of Facebook impressions,” he says. “We’re looking to get 25,000 Twitter engagements, and we’re looking at the number of entries we get too.”

In this campaign, success is not limited to the second screen. For entrants and the Nissan social team alike, the TV commercial at the end of this contest is what’s most at stake. Slated to launch in September, Marx sees the contest as a build-up to the mainstream debut of the micro-video collage that will be one of the Versa Note’s first TV spots.

“The success of the television commercial that we’re able to weave together from the winning entries, we’re hoping that that’s something that can be a big part of the Versa Note broadcast TV launch,” Marx says.

For aspiring mini-videographers, the door to the #VersaVids contest remains open until August 5, 2013. What are you waiting for? Step on it!

http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2013/07/nissan-tv-commercial-vine/

Nissan Introduces a Smart Watch. Seriously.

Consumer electronics companies and chipmakers aren't the only players entering the wearable tech space. Nissan is joining the fray too, with what it alleges is the first smart watch to connect the car and driver.

Nissan will be showing off the device — dubbed the Nissan Nismo Watch — at the Frankfurt Motor Show. It's Nissan's first entry into the world of wearable tech.

Right now, the target of the Nismo Watch are drivers of Nissan Nismo cars. Nismo is Nissan's motorsport and performance division. It's responsible for supercars, race cars and ridiculously tricked-out performance kits.

As such, the Nismo Watch is focused on a very specific audience and its featureset is different from your standard smart watch, in that it's less about connecting to your smartphone and more about connecting to your car.

Here are some of the things the Nismo Watch can do:

• Connects to the car using a smartphone app as a Bluetooth Smart device
• Access vehicle telematics and performance data while on the track
• Capture biometric data via a heart-rate monitor in the watch
• Monitor the efficiency of your car with average speed and fuel-consumption readings
• Get tailored car messages from Nissan

Nissan says that the Nismo Watch can also track and rate the user's social media performance across Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram using its Social Speed software. Klout for cars? Who knew!

The Nismo Watch is an extension of Nissan's Nismo Lab, which launched earlier this year. The Nismo Lab is a mobile laboratory that captures live biometric and telematics data from Nismo athletes during races. With the Nismo Watch, Nissan hopes to make this sort of data available to the the drivers. With any luck, this sort of technology can also be used in other areas.

n the future, the Nismo Lab wants to focus on ECG, EEG and skin temperature sensors — so that that sort of data can get passed back to athletes via the smart watch.

The Nismo Watch comes in black, white and black and red and it was designed to look like the Nismo ring. The watch is controlled with two buttons and should get over seven days of battery life with normal usage.

Ev

Even though this might be the most niche smart watch of all time, we also think that the idea is pretty cool. The potential here — at least in a racing scenario — is to truly connect the car with the driver, letting the driver know what's happening with the car, but also by potentially providing team members with information about factors such as heart rate and temperature.

Historically, car companies use motorsports as a way to test the most advanced and cutting-edge technologies, some of which eventually make their way to regular automobiles. So what do you think: Could you ever imagine getting information about your car from your watch? Or what about your car getting information about you? How cool would it be if the temperature could adjust itself based on body temperature? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Honda CRV's Social Activity Vehicle Case Study

http://4asstrategyfestival.com/storage/bronze_RPA_honda%20CR-V.pdf

Spaceship by Ben Tedesco - 2013 MOFILM Cannes Contest | Chevrolet