Audi continued their recent trend for featuring classic songs with a progressive twist in the 2017 Audi Clowns campaign, where Stephen Sondheim's classic show tune 'Send In The Clowns' was re-recorded by British artist/producer Faultline (AKA David Kosten), featuring Mercury Prize nominated singer/songwriter Lisa Hannigan.

The agency ECD chose the song early in the process and because it was integral to the premise of the film, the agency's in-house music division supervised the demo process and publishing negotiation long before the film was actually shot. It was love at first listen with Lisa Hannigan's reckoning of the song, and her version was swiftly chosen by Audi and the agency to feature in the campaign.

Faultline's 'Send In The Clowns' was released digitally as a single and featured in a Shazam campaign to help drive traffic to road safety charity Brake in support of Road Safety Week in November 2017.

The roads are full of clowns. But for Audi drivers it isn’t an issue. This film features a troupe of the comic characters taking to their collapsing cars and causing havoc on the roads with their antics. A range of Audi models calmly avert disaster with their hi-tech safety capabilities. The technologies include Audi pre sense city, cross traffic rear assist, quattro all-wheel-drive, Matrix LED highlights, adaptive cruise control and Audi side assist. Eventually, the new Audi A8 luxury saloon parks up, showcasing its park assist feature, between two clown cars, before the tagline ‘Audi Technology. Clown Proof’.

The majority of Audi's new brains features were about improving driver safety and there is considerable evidence that such technologies reduce the risk of accidents and loss of human life. So we chose to dramatise the feeling of safety in a charming, magical way. The solution was to use clowns as the cause of all kinds of road silliness that the technology would protect you from. Or as we put it Audi technology made you 'Clown proof'.