Vast open roads. Gliding drone photographs. Glowing sunsets. {Couples} smiling behind the wheel. These scenes might describe any variety of automobile adverts, with a lot of the automotive trade leaning on the identical tried and examined components.
The identical might be mentioned of the purposeful language utilized in these adverts.
However one model trying to distinguish itself and pave a unique path is Audi, which has intentionally rejected the conventions of the class.
In its most up-to-date advert, ‘Gentle, as you prefer it’, for instance, a choir sits inside an A6 Avant e-tron singing a rendition of ‘I wish to Transfer It’, whereas final yr’s ‘Love at First Gentle’ exhibits a moth following a automobile’s LED headlights.
Audi UK’s director of selling and digital, Tony Moore, believes taking an alternate method like this helps the automobile marque stand out in an more and more crowded class.
“Should you examined these adverts towards the class norms, they wouldn’t tick a single field,” he tells Advertising and marketing Week. “And that’s precisely why we made them.”
“I feel that [sameness] is without doubt one of the largest risks within the auto trade.”
The place different automobile manufacturers discuss technical specs and statistics, Audi desires to focus extra on the emotional relationship individuals have with its automobiles, Moore explains.
“It’s about making a human connection,” he says. “Not simply displaying individuals across the automobile, however giving the automobile itself a persona.”
He believes the UK’s distinctive sense of humour permits it to have a really particular relationship with UK automobile consumers, which he describes as “distinctively Audi”.
Be courageous sufficient to say when one thing didn’t work, tweak it, and go once more.
Tony Moore, Audi UK
Audi has labored with artistic company BBH for greater than 4 a long time, which Moore says offers the model extra freedom to take dangers, as the 2 companies have created a strong basis.
“That shared historical past means we are able to transfer quick, push tougher and take artistic leaps we couldn’t take with out that degree of belief,” he says.
“If you’ve acquired 40 years of shared understanding, you’ll be able to afford to take dangers. That connection lets us problem the class and be bolder than most manufacturers would dare.”
For BBH London’s chief technique officer, Will Lion, belief is every part. “With new purchasers, threat urge for food begins low,” he says. “It grows as the connection deepens. If you’ve acquired 43 years collectively, you recognize what works. That’s when you’ll be able to actually zag whereas everybody else zigs.”
Through the years, Audi and BBH have labored to formalise a set of 5 core artistic rules, which it retains confidential, that each piece of labor should meet.
“We actually rating ourselves towards them,” Lion says. “You may’t fudge it with ‘good assembly, good advert’. It’s there in black and white.”
BBH additionally makes use of AI to protect towards clichés, feeding automotive promoting right into a software that maps the tropes to keep away from. “We name it the ‘Zig Radiation’,” says Lion. “It’s our Chernobyl map of mediocrity. If we begin drifting towards these tropes, we sound the alarm.”
For the worldwide automobile sector, the index finds an 82% overlap in language and an 80% overlap on visuals, making it one of many sectors with the best overlap total.
“We’ve modelled which emotional qualities result in model need, which in flip drives gross sales,” Lion says. “That provides you a logical argument for artistic threat. Instantly, the ‘mad’ concept is the sensible one.”
Moore’s philosophy mirrors that stability between artwork and proof. “You need to consider the hell out of every part,” he says. “Be courageous sufficient to say when one thing didn’t work, tweak it, and go once more.”
This urge for food for threat is paying off. Audi’s measure of brand name “desirability” has risen 5 proportion factors over the previous yr—a key aim for Moore’s group.
“Should you can construct [desirability], you drive long-term development. We all know a 3% rise in need offers a 5% carry in leads over time,” he says.
Audi’s newest marketing campaign – Gentle, as you prefer it – has additionally boosted consideration by 5.1%, generated twice as a lot prime of funnel web site visitors and 3 times extra direct leads than the preliminary goal. Plus, it led to the highest-ever natural social attain for a product marketing campaign.
Heritage and id
The UK automobile market has not often been harder. New entrants are flooding in, significantly in electrical autos, whereas whole gross sales volumes haven’t recovered because the pandemic, in keeping with the Society of Motor Producers & Merchants (SMMT).
Moore says Audi’s response has been to double down on what makes it Audi.
“You may’t have enterprise as normal when 20% of the market didn’t exist 5 years in the past,” he says. “You need to be clear about your DNA and maintain speaking what makes you totally different.”
That DNA runs by means of one in every of advertising’s most recognisable slogans: ‘Vorsprung durch Technik’. When BBH launched it within the Nineteen Eighties, focus teams hated it, as they thought it was too overseas and, extra importantly, too German.
The then-marketing director ignored the suggestions. “It’s now a part of British tradition,” says Lion. “It’s in Alan Partridge, Peep Present, even a Blur tune. It’s shorthand for contemporary progress.”
Even when the road doesn’t seem on display screen, it sits beneath every part Audi does.
By BBH’s estimates, the full worth of the Audi model and the Vorsprung durch Technik line has delivered £31.8bn incremental income to the enterprise over the 40 years since its launch within the UK.
The draw back of being mediocre has by no means been better. The upside of being totally different has by no means been greater.
Will Lion, BBH
That sense of consistency runs by means of Audi’s buyer technique too. “We don’t simply need clients – we would like followers,” says Moore. “Followers are forgiving. They keep on with you.”
Audi nurtures that fandom by means of ‘Audi Presents’, an experiential programme providing entry to music, meals and sport. “Individuals who attend are 20% extra prone to re-buy,” Moore says. “Fandom is deep, fandom is forgiving and fandom works.”
With Audi making ready to enter Method 1 in 2026, Moore sees one other probability to succeed in new audiences. “F1 offers us a platform to speak to a youthful, extra numerous viewers,” he says. “It’s the proper method to evolve our fan base.”
Staying true to the model’s core whereas continually transferring ahead is a recurring theme for Audi. “It’s simple to be courageous only for the sake of it,” says Moore. “However that you must know what made your model nice. You evolve, however you don’t lose your centre.”
Lion provides: “Advertising and marketing’s pure state is sameness. So the draw back of being mediocre has by no means been better. The upside of being totally different has by no means been greater.”
