The 21st Century Beetle captures the spirit of the original 60's Beetle, but sports all the power and design features of a modern VW. Our challenge: promote the 21st Century Beetle whilst capturing the rebellious spirit of the original Beetle.

Together with Facebook, we created Hitchhike with a Like: a social media game that took the classic hitchhike symbol of the 60s, the thumbs-up, and updated it with a 21st Century ‘Like’. Players had to hitchhike across Europe choosing from 64 uniquely designed Beetles, each with an originally composed soundtrack and 256 matching stories that incorporated the Beetle's features.

The 21st Century Beetle has the feel of the original Beetle, but in a totally new way. Thus we updated the hitchhike gesture of the 60s, the thumbs-up, into a 21st Century ‘Like’.

Our target audience (People 2.0) are always connected, always sharing, always trying to make every day a social event for themselves, together with their friends. This generation hasn't actively experienced the 60s and is therefore not as familiar with the classic Beetle. By promoting the new 21st Century Beetle through a social media game, we were able to capture their interest and keep them entertained.

Hitchhike with a Like was a success amongst active online gamers and quickly gained a group of hardcore fans that played the game for an average of 56 minutes. On average, players hitched a ride with 15 different Beetles (each ride lasting around one minute), which means they spent around 15 minutes in-game. This exceeded the client’s objective by 12 minutes per player.

Unfortunately, we cannot disclose any other information due to VW policy.