In 1969, a Volkswagen Beetle was wrongly parked on Abbey Road. Sadly, the parking mishap ended up on one of the world’s most iconic album covers.

Back then, Volkswagen did not have Park Assist technology. But today they do, which is why they righted old wrongs and reparked the car, just to show how far Volkswagen technology has come in 50 years.

The objective was to engage pop culture fans globally, while also showcasing Volkswagen technology that improves the driving experience.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Abbey Road, Volkswagen released a limited edition vinyl cover with a perfectly parked 5th Beatle.

The tribute highlights Park Assist, a parallel parking assistant that automatically parks the car – a feature that would have come in handy back then.

Volkswagen targeted fans of two pop cultural icons – The Beatles and the Beetle. By releasing the reparked Abbey Road with Park Assist vinyl cover on the day of the official 50th anniversary, they reached people that were already celebrating and talking about Abbey Road. It also coincided with the release of the official Remastered Edition of the album.

Abbey Road with Park Assist was released on September 26, 2019, exactly 50 years after Abbey Road came out. It was sold in record stores and on a campaign site online. To promote the launch, Volkswagen ran product recall ads for the badly parked original in newspapers and DOOH, encouraging people to replace the original cover with a badly parked Beetle with the new, correctly parked anniversary edition. All proceeds were donated to BRIS, a children’s rights organisation.

· 425 000 000 unique media impressions

· Tens of thousands of visits to the campaign site

· The limited edition vinyl cover sold out in a couple of hours

· Now selling on eBay for +2500%

· 50 000 SEK donated to children’s rights organisation Bris

· Exhibited at one of the world’s oldest and largest Beatles museums