Print Case Study

Precision Parking: Parks Assist by Volkswagen

Client: Volkswagen

Advertising Agency: DBB Tribal Berlin

Country: Berlin

Campaign Type: Print Campaign

Chief Creative Officer: Eric Schoeffler

Creative Directors/Copywriters: Maged Nassar

Illustrator: The Operators

The Campaign:

DDB Tribal Berlin Germany launched their first ‘Precision Parking’ campaign for Volkswagen in 2012. Volkswagen wanted to find a new way off increasing the sale of the optional equipment that they include with the new cars they sell. To do this, they began thinking of ideas that would introduce the new features, as well as get people excited about them. One of the main new features they chose to promote for their new cars was ‘the park assist’.

The park assist is a feature where your Volkswagen car will practically park itself. It gives the option for the driver to park in tight spots with the touch of a button, and all the driver needs to do is work the pedals. Then the ultrasonic sensors in the front bumpers will scan the space to detect whether it’s large enough. This is all done by pressing the new Parks Assist Button – the feature Volkswagen wished to promote. 

Volkswagen decided to approach DBB Tribal Berlin with the job, and left the campaign in their hands. This is when the chief creative officer and creative directors/copywriters began discussing the promotional possibilities, and came up with the idea to promote it via a print campaign. They thought a brilliant way to promote Volkswagens new parks assist feature, would be to point out the dangers of tightly parking cars, and thought up a clever way to go about this and get across the message.

DBB Tribal Berlin thought about metaphorical ways in which they could symbolised these dangers, and due to their target audience being 17+ (as Volkswagen are a car company, so would only target an audience who can legally drive) they knew the message would come across clearly to the viewers they were targeting. This is why they chose to feature a hedgehog tightly positioned between three water-filled bags which each contain goldfish (although the hedgehog is not coming into contact with these bags). The hedgehog obviously symbolises the potential buyers in their Volkswagen car with the new feature, parking safely next to the goldfish which represent the other cars. DBB took a scenario they knew the target audience would be able to understand to show the risks the audience suffer without Volkswagens new feature.

Due to the print advertisements effective message and clever content, the campaign has got a lot of praise, such as being shared on many blogs for being a successful advertisement, and being ranked as the 6^th top print advertisement on Best Ads.

To make people aware of the new feature, and grab a large audience’s attention, the print advertisement featured on many billboards in Germanys main cities. It was also featured in press ads in the most sold magazines.

Annotation of the Print Advert:

Purpose:

The purpose of the print is to firstly make people aware of the risks of parking tightly between cars can bring, and by doing so introducing the new Parks Assist feature Volkswagen have to offer, and the effects it has on tightly parking.

Content:

The print advertisement very successfully draws the viewer’s attention in through the clever humour and message the content brings. The content suggests Volkswagen is individual, it does this through representing the Volkswagen car with the parks assist feature as a hedgehog, whereas the other three cars parked around it are being portrayed as goldfish – all the same (which emphasizes Volkswagens individuality) but also not as smart and equipt (goldfish are known to be unintelligent). The hedgehog also may reflect Volkswagen, as it is sharp, large, and rich in colour which grabs the viewers attention, which is a way to suggest Volkswagen are attempting to grab our attention.

The clear message the content gets across, is that Volkswagens new assist parking feature is accurate. This is done metaphorically by using a hedgehog which represents a Volkswagen car, parked tightly in-between three bags of goldfish, which represent other cars.

They’ve used a situation everyone can relate too - A hedgehog is used due to the sharpness of its spikes next to the weak plastic bags, to point out to the viewers the risks of parking so tightly. In this example they’ve even used exaggeration effectively by putting animal’s lives in danger to get across their point.  

Typography:

The only text the print features is ‘Precision Parking’ followed by ‘Parks Assist by Volkswagen’. The small amount of text is effective, as it doesn’t distract from the main message the image clearly and effectively gets across on its own. The font used is ‘Copy’ which appears to be a masculine font due to the font being being thick, bold and there being no serifs in the text.

Composition/Layout:

The content (being the image of the hedgehog and the three bags of goldfish) are carefully positioned in a straight line, and each gap between the objects is very proportional to one another. This is done, to again reflect the accuracy Volkswagen are trying to suggest their parking feature brings.

Slogan:

The slogan ‘Precision Parking’ is short, to the point, and rememberable. To make this slogan stick in the audience’s minds, they have purposely chosen to use minimal words, and alliteration. Using the word precision might not just be referring to the accurate parking, but also the accuracy of Volkswagen, and their promise that the feature really works.

Target Audience:

The target audience are clearly people aged 17+, as Volkswagen specialises in cars and the legal age to drive is 17. This means only people this age or over would be interested in the product.

Reach, Relevancy & Frequency:

The print was featured on many billboards in Germany’s main cities, as well as press ads in the most sold magazines, but also got a lot of free publicity by people sharing and talking about the print due to the clever content and messages it shows.

Sources:
http://adsoftheworld.com/media/print/volkswagen_park_assist_hedgehog_and_fish
http://advertisingdesign-e.weebly.com/blog/volkswagen-precision-parking
http://www.brandsynario.com/volkswagen-precision-parking