 "#Volkswagen's vibrator is a big fat #Fail")
What on earth were Volkswagen and the agency thinking?
“Feel the shiver of excitement?”, asks Volkswagen on the front page of various national newspapers this morning. Flip the paper over, and you land on a second full page ad where there’s a little black box attached. The little black box, which will no doubt add to the topline and bottomline of a Chinsese company, ‘shivers’.
[caption id=“attachment_451237” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]
Shiver or vibrate? The jury is out on this one: Copy of the ad in Times of India[/caption]
Er, not quite. While it might ‘shiver’ as far as Volkswagen and the agency are concerned, to the consumer, it ‘vibrates’.
Search for ‘vibration’ or ‘vibrator; on Twitter, and here’s a sampling of what I discovered (at 11.38 am).
https://twitter.com/Ace_Of_Pace/status/245399642982985728
https://twitter.com/vivekagnihotri/status/245395390113914880
https://twitter.com/rameshsrivats/status/245392801276239872
https://twitter.com/BziB/status/245386427297320960
https://twitter.com/paavani/status/245379054105153536
In fact, run a quick search for the hashtag #Volkswagen and things are as bad.
https://twitter.com/ramansundar/status/245386523703382016
https://twitter.com/schmmuck/status/245403006747701248
https://twitter.com/rajikatalwar/status/245385172516737025
And that’s not good news. Do a google search for ‘car vibrations’ and all the results relate to problems with the car.
Take another step. Do a google search for ‘Volkswagen vibrations’ and you see a number of problems with references to various models of Volkswagen.It’s been about four hours since I’ve been tracking comments on Volkswagen on social media - and I have yet to see a SINGLE reference to any car model, to any of the virtues of the Polo and Vento highlighted in the ‘innovation’.
#Volkswagen is trending on twitter - there’s no doubt about that. But does the campaign deliver? I’ll use another popular hashtag on this one - the campaign is a #Fail.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsAnant Rangaswami was, until recently, the editor of Campaign India magazine, of which Anant was also the founding editor. Campaign India is now arguably India's most respected publication in the advertising and media space. Anant has over 20 years experience in media and advertising. He began in Madras, for STAR TV, moving on as Regional Manager, South for Sony’s SET and finally as Chief Manager at BCCL’s Times Television and Times FM. He then moved to advertising, rising to the post of Associate Vice President at TBWA India. Anant then made the leap into journalism, taking over as editor of what is now Campaign India's competitive publication, Impact. Anant teaches regularly and is a prolific blogger and author of Watching from the sidelines.