Branded content is a growing trend throughout marketing in the UK, and the automotive sector is no different. In fact, car brands were one of the first to the table, with pioneering campaigns such as BMW’s The Hire setting the bar for its competitors early on in the development of online content. This – combined with the wealth of user-generated content around cars - makes the sector uniquely competitive one to achieve cut through and success for branded content.

Our content was designed around themes that we knew were likely to promote sharing: a vanishing car, cult film references (back to the future), references to iconic cultural events (Jubilee, Millennium), and a ‘did-they or didn’t they’ subtext. The result was content many passed onto their friends.The campaign also contained an all-important PR opportunity, through the live launch event. This helped ensure good press coverage for the campaign, which in turn drew many more to interact with it.

In just 6 weeks, 943,151 people had interacted with the campaign. Over 70% of these had spent at least 3 minutes with it.Over 10m people were exposed to the story through PR, with the story of GTI’s miraculous disappearance covered in several publications.Volkswagen Facebook fans increased 30% during the campaign period as 10,000s used the page to follow the time-travellers return to the present.And – perhaps most importantly of all – those exposed to the campaign showed a 10% uplift in consideration for the brand.All on a budget that would barely have bought a few press ads.