The Volkswagen Polo is South Africa's favourite hatch, but rivals are gaining popularity as the Volkswagen brand is viewed as safe and behind the times when it comes to technology. The Polo audience is the most technologically integrated audience, making up the largest group of gamers, streamers, crypto traders, and adblocker users in South Africa. With COVID still hampering physical events and test drives, we needed to find a way to connect to this hard-to-reach audience in a way that not only engaged them, but demonstrated that Volkswagen is advancing automotive technology, and the new Polo with IQ.DRIVE, Volkswagen's Intelligence system, is the first taste of the future. To achieve our targets, maintain top spot in sales, connect to this niche audience and improve brand sentiment, we needed to turn our advertising into an experience, and virtually make our audience active participants in our journey into the Metaverse and Web3.0.

The new Polo with IQ.DRIVE, Volkswagen’s Intelligence system, levels up your drive. Turn on the ignition and it’s Game On. The city is your stage, the streets are your playground. To celebrate the game-changing arrival of the next-gen Polo, we transformed the streets of Johannesburg into an African corner of the Metaverse, and turned our ad into an interactive experience by creating a collection of NFTs inspired by the streets of South Africa and hiding them in our ad.

The story begins with a driver getting into a Polo and selecting an avatar for her journey. She transforms from Afro-Punk to Hologram Girl and Oshun Nigerian sun goddess before settling on a Neon Xhosa look. She pulls up to a starting line, the game begins and she’s off. She navigates her way through a hyped-up version of Johannesburg, conquering game-style challenges and bosses, eventually reaching her destination as the winner.

23-34yrs, the Polo audience is the most digitally integrated demographic. Forming the largest group of gamers, streamers, crypto and NFT traders, and users of ad blockers in South Africa. The embrace technology in all aspect of their lives, and it informs their buying decisions, from their homes and devices to their choice of car. We needed to tap into their passion points and actively include them in the campaign, where they'll experience the progressive nature of the new Polo and advancements in technology Volkswagen has made through IQ.DRIVE, their Intelligence system. To do this we gamified our advertising by turning our ad into an interactive treasure hunt for a currency this audience covet more than anything - NFTs. We worked with NFT platform, OpenSea, to develop a collection inspired by the streets of South Africa. We then hid them in our communication and challenged consumers to find and win them.

We worked with NFT platform, OpenSea, to develop a collection of individually made NFTs we called the “Manzsiverse”, Mzansi being slang for South Africa. The collection consisted of 5 chapters, each inspired by the many different styles found in gaming, the Metaverse and South African street culture. Using a mix of stills, vids, gifs, portraiture, and street scenes.

The sub-sections are: Pixel Playground, Neon, Holograms, 8-Bit Players, Vending Machine Balls.

We housed the “Mzansiverse” on the Polygon blockchain due it having the lowest gas fees and energy usage, ensuring the collection had virtually no impact on the environment and our audience’s wallet.

To create the collection we looked to fuse elements from South African culture with visual iconography from the gaming and metaverse worlds. From the neon signage found on the streets of Joburg and the characters who run it (Slay Queens, Jozi gym couples, Taxi Bosses), to the hand signs people use when communicating with the taxis, the local wildlife (Lion, Hadeda) and pests likes the Parktown prawn which we transformed into a localised version of Space Invaders.

For designs and textures, we drew inspiration from the patterns used by the Ndebele tribe and combined them with the 8-bit pixel style to create an Afrofuturistic pattern which we carried through the campaign. Much like the Japanese serifs accent the cities in futuristic Anime, we used the 8-bit/Ndebele pattern to the same effect. We applied the 8-bit style to local settings, turning them into pixel playgrounds frequented by our audience, these included “Spaza” corner shops, the creative hub of the Maboneng precinct, and the car wash which is firmly rooted in South African social culture.

The collection was designed in 3 months in parallel with the ad's VFX builds, then imbedded in the gamified ad, as characters, patterns, and features.

VW POLO RESULTS

This campaign set a new benchmark for engagement in the attention economy as millions who avoid ads, were now watching our ad over and over again, whilst turning their social feeds into free ad space for the new Polo.

The campaign was embraced by a niche target audience, leading to VW exceeding sales targets and selling out of the new Polo.

CAMPAIGN EARNED REACH

15,9 Million high affinity audiences reached through earned media

CAMPAIGN ENGAGEMENT:

Most viewed advert of 2022

96,8% average percentage viewed of the hero video ad

Least Skipped advert of 2022

93,8% average percentage viewed of the pre-roll video ad

300 x average Twitter Engagement rate

179% above average campaign page dwell time

SALES RESULTS

We exceeded sales target by 12%

New Polo sold out