Volkswagen GTE - "Drive through the commercial in 7.6 sec"

The Passat is a well-known brand in Norway, and the new GTE engine hits the mark in a growing hybrid market. By combining the power of an electric and gasoline engine, the Passat is a car with sporty characteristics. The car goes from 0 to 100 in just 7.6 seconds, and this was the message that was sent out in the launch campaign.

TRY created a communication concept where users would engage in an online competition. Participants had to try to stop a clock in exactly 7.6 seconds for a chance to win a car. To increase the chances of winning, people were encouraged to share the campaign and book test drives at dealerships.

Dagbladet and TV2
Web TV was considered one of the mainstays of the campaign. The format basically combines the high attention that comes with live sound and image with the possibility of generating traffic and conversion. This was where the competition was to take place.

As two of Norway's largest web TV publishers, TV2 and Dagbladet were contacted. Low double coverage gives digital campaigns that are run across the media houses a better basis for reaching a wide audience. Shared technology and the partners made collaboration technically possible.

Faster to the finish
The main goal of the campaign was to communicate that the GTE button gave you 0-100 km/h in 7.6 seconds. User behavior on Web TV showed that users want to skip past the commercial. For both of these aspects, the basic motivation is "to get to the destination faster".

TV 2, Dagbladet and Madington therefore teamed up to develop a new interactive video format where a GTE button in the player allowed users to fast-forward through the commercial in exactly 7.6 seconds. Fast-forwarding through the commercial, rather than skipping, would be a good illustration of how the GTE button speeds up the process of getting to the goal. Whether that goal was to get to the selected content, or to reach 100 km/h. In this way, we used the properties of the media surface to emphasize the USP of the campaign, while ensuring a better user experience on the editorial product.

The new format also included a wallpaper around the web TV player. The campaign filled the entire screen and provided complete dominance for increased attention.

Challenging development
To achieve all this, a lot of new functionality had to be put in place. It was necessary to make fundamental changes to the script that connects publishing tools with ad management tools. Everyone quickly turned around and the changes were developed and implemented at record speed. Just in time for the campaign launch.

Startling results
The new bespoke media surface proved to deliver incredible results:

• The Web TV part of the campaign delivered a whopping 71.1% lower cost per attention compared to MediaCom's benchmark database for Web TV.
• In this campaign, web TV was the second cheapest media channel in terms of cost per attention, beaten only by display. These are unique results in a campaign that also uses TV and outdoor. Web TV achieved a 29.9% lower cost per attention than TV.
• The campaign has also delivered a result that is remarkable. There are 23.8% more people who remember that the rewind function took exactly 7.6 seconds, than people who remember the web TV movie itself. This shows the powerful effect unique interaction elements have on attention.
• Companion Wallpaper banners on TV2 and Dagbladet delivered 24.3% lower cost per conversion than other display formats.

Involved in the case:
ALLER: Aleksander Hamm
TV2: Rune Nyheim, Elisabeth Kretzmähr, Marius Høgebøl
Volkswagen: Tor Anton Bjørge, Thea Øwre-Johansen
MediaCom: Ruben Søgaard, Dan Ruben Johansen, Maren Merakerås
TRY:Annette Werner, Cathrine Wennersten, Gunnar Stensaker
Madington: Patrik Wilhelmsson

Contact Aleksander Hamm at Aller for more information about the case.