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According to Campaign, VW is looking for a social media agency in the UK.

This will add another partner to the company's already expansive communications roster, add incremental fees and mean there's more to manage and co-ordinate. In a an environment where budgets and resources are being challenged, it seems counter-intuitive.

However, the media has done a good job, Influx Insights included, in hyping the social media space to such a point that client's probably believe the need a specialist to help them in this complex and challenging environment.

On the surface, at a moment in time when the CMO and his or her bosses seem fixated on the thrills of Facebook and Twitter, holding a review and hiring a specialist seems like a problem solved.

In reality, it might be more trouble that it's worth. If you take a step back and look at how social media breaks down and what's needed, it's pretty basic.

1. Someone has to listen and respond- probably best for the in-house customer service team to work on this.

2. Posting relevant content to get conversation-likely to be split between PR and advertising who both play a role in getting content out to the crowd. Good companies in these fields are already up-to-speed and know the world of social media.

Social media is another channel that must be a part of the communication mix, but fragmenting responsibility, while it seems like a sound plan, might make a marketers life a lot more complicated.

It would be great to get people's thoughts on this topic.


Posted by Ed Cotton There's a lot of buzz for this viral video from VW (currently close to 2 million views on YouTube).



It's clever and entertaining, but I keep wondering why it is we like it and I can only assume it's because it shows a brand really going out of its way to make people's lives more fun.

You could hire an expensive director and produce an elaborate ad that shows exactly the same thing, but it would not have half the power or potency, which tells us something about the weakness of advertising.

The VW film is engaging and interactive because there's an interesting concept (the challenge of an alternative route), you know its real and you want to see how the people react (will they take the long road, if it's more fun) and this is the piece that draws you in.

In reality, it's the next best thing to make a great product, it's clever, live experiential communication that can be shared.

While the linkage of the idea to VW is a little stretched, you overlooked that and end up just feeling good about the brand.

I guess there's a lesson here.

How can you create something real that has a conceptual idea at it's heart and provides a fun, interesting, positive and engaging experience for people?

Posted by Ed Cotton "The most important thing to remember is that creating a beautifully simple experience is incredibly complex. To succeed planners needs to reach a level of breath and depth as never before. Breath because not are only briefing creative but also designer, technologist and user experience architect. Depth because by the nature of the experience, if you want to make every interaction counts, a single thought is not enough. You need to get into the details. In the end, it is a bit like if you had to design a new Volkswagen. And that’s actually the concept we used to launch the site."

Vincent- a planner@Tribal DDB (On developing VW UK's website)

Case study can be seen here. (thanks Gareth Kay and Adrian Ho)


Posted by Ed Cotton When Porsche brings out a radical concept, the Panamera, a 4 seater sedan, you kind of expect it to remain a Porsche, but just like the Cayenne SUV, it's still basically a VW.

VW group has plans to extend the new Porsche platform to its other brands Bentley, Audi, Bugatti and perhaps even Lamborghini.

Obviously, the cost of development is so high that these platforms have to be shared for the economics to work, but the danger here is that the uniqueness of brands is getting lost in an accounting process.

However, as a counter argument, shared platforms means that the marketing folks, designers and engineers at the individual brands have to work doubly hard to put brand meaning to do whatever they can to make their models stand out.


Posted by Ed Cotton In a time where we are being driven to desire the natural and the remote, it's fascinating to see somebody take a different take and look at "escape" in an urban context.

A Scottish theater company. Magentic North, is staging a production of Henry Thoreau's Walden in a car park.

Bldblog has a nice piece about it.

I think it's interesting because we seem over-burdened with natural cliches about getting out and finding escape in the natural world.

VW's "Night Driving" campaign also changed it around, challenging us us to find beauty in the urban.



Magentic North's Walden is another great example.


Posted by Ed Cotton ad as art- vw night driving (51.15178610143037 , 0.439453125) Sometimes advertising can come close to art.

This is a great example from VW UK that opens-up a new thought and territory around night driving. The idea to turn night driving from something that's fearful and dull, to a place of discovery, makes for a very nice strategic thought, but that's just the start. From that foundation, creativity kicks in to overdrive and comes up with something fresh using the backdrop of the the city of Los Angeles, the vocal talents of Richard Burton and the writing of Dylan Thomas.




Posted by Ed Cotton