Volkswagen is the world’s largest car brand, but virtually all its business decisions are made from its HQ in Wolfsburg, Germany.

For China, VW’s biggest market, we needed a different approach to keep VW’s brand reputation top of mind, where it was perceived as a car for your dad’s generation.

In China, NEV (new energy vehicle) startups are all the buzz, causing older OEMs such as VW to fall behind in word of mouth.

Around the same time, Volkswagen China outlined its new corporate strategy "Vision of Mobility 2025", but it needed a consumer-facing campaign to communicate this new commitment to the Chinese market.

The main objective was to boost VW's reputation among a younger target audience, with a clear focus on "design perception" and "innovation perception".

Volkswagen has always been the “People’s Car”.

So when it announced the development of a new prototype, shouldn’t it include the opinions and preferences of its largest consumer base?

Idea:

Volkswagen presents “The People’s Prototype”

The first-ever prototype, not imported from Germany, but made in China, for China.

Witness the birth of Volkswagen's next design icon, for the next generation, nearly 80 years after the original icon, the Beetle, conquered the streets and hearts.

We wanted to improve our reputation/perception with a vastly younger audience, who would be future car buyers or are currently looking for their first purchase.

Our insights showed that they still use short video platforms as their primary source of entertainment. And that's where this wild new idea originated:

What if we created a drama/love show, and disguised it as a huge market research tool, by giving viewers the power to choose the outcome of the episodes, through carefully curated questions about their tech/future/mobility preferences?

Then, what if we compiled a huge Big Database of "preferences" from these viewers, and fed that to a local team of highly skilled designers, engineers and manufacturers to turn this research into reality and create the "Mobility of the Future?". So that everyone is part of the process..

The result was a massive 2 years campaign that transformed Volkswagen's business model and marketing approach.

The campaign unfolded over 4 key phases.

1. Building the dream team

At Demo China 2019, the nation's leading tech conference, we hosted a startup competition to source the most innovative pioneers in the tech/automotive industry.

Over 630 ideas were submitted, and we recruited 3 winners (magnetic levitation, gesture control, biometric sensors).

2. Inviting the public

Partnering with MangoTV, China's number 1. Gen Z streaming platform, we developed a 5 part interactive TV futuristic love/drama show to research the viewers preferences for their "car of the future"

3. We then used all this data to sketch, design and build this prototype with our dream team, using only local partners and experts to follow a truly holistic "Made in China, for China" development process

4. The People's Prototype was unveiled at Demo World, where it all began back in 2019, coming full circle.

For phase 1, Demo China saw its biggest spike in traffic since its inception.

Phase 2,

Over 180 million viewers tuned in, leading to the collection of 2,355,909 unique data points about this generation's preference of future mobility. Across the episodes, we presented the viewer with 54 interactive popup questions (8 car features / 46 lifestyles & plots / 20 profiling questions)

The campaign sparked an era of experimentation within Volkswagen internally.

Board members were now paying more attention to Chinese consumers' insights, and allowed for more direct engagement with the target audience in subsequent campaigns.

Across the entire campaign, Volkswagen's enjoyed a massive brand likeability spike from 43% to 78%.

We overachieved our KPIs to boost Volkswagen's tech & design reputation, proving once more that by being the car of the people, another true design icon was born.