CLIENT
Volkswagen of America Inc.
Karen Marderosian, Dir. of Marketing
John Gasloli, Model Manager
Stuart Karp, Conquest Advertising Leader
Heidi Korte, Partnership Mktg. Manager
AGENCY
Joe Roman, Management Supervisor - Partnership Mktg.
Colleen McGee, Account Supervisor
Don Lane, SVP/ Group Account Dir.
Michael Shonkoff, Management Supervisor
Marilyn Monturio, VP- Brand Planning Dir.
Andrew Lynch, Cultural Strategist
SUMMARY
Consumers were skeptical when they heard Volkswagen (the "People's Car" company) was introducing a luxury car-the Phaeton. The Pre-Launch campaign was designed to tackle this skepticism head-on-to get consumers to see beyond the Volkswagen badge. We targeted people who were likely to accept the notion that VW would be capable of introducing a luxury car. We called these people Transcendent Drivers. We used a fully integrated campaign to reach Transcendent Drivers - in art-house cinemas, targeted publications, through a personalized direct mail campaign and finally, through an exclusive test drive program. Our goal was to get Transcendent Drivers behind-the-wheel of the Phaeton, ultimately leading to positive word-of-mouth momentum leading up to the launch. We conducted over 1900 test drives and sold over 700 Phaetons before launch.
