CCT356+Online+Ad+Critique

=== __**Volkswagen Vs Mercedes**__ ===

 Online advertising campaigns can be seen everywhere throughout the Internet: on websites as banners, pop-ups and throughout the social networking websites we all use in our daily lives. What sets online advertising apart from regular print advertising is it’s ability to interact and connect with it’s audience, and as a result seem less like an advertisement. The abilities for interaction between advertiser and consumer are only increasing as technology and social networking are continually evolving to become apart of our lives. This can be seen in the innovation and increased participation of an online Volkswagen campaign done in 2009, compared to an online Mercedes Campaign conducted early February 2011. Both looked to popular online websites such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to create buzz around their new car models, but unlike traditional campaigns they used real life consumers to promote the cars, opposed to doing it all themselves.

 In 2009 Volkswagen conducted an online campaign called “The People’s Reviewer” to promote their new compact 4x4 model the Tiguan. This campaign started with a search for a real consumer to be selected to give an honest review of the vehicle. Contestants were asked to submit audition videos on youtube promoting exactly why they should be chosen, providing a creative and entertaining plan for how exactly they would go about reviewing the new car. This resulted in around 1000 submissions. The best ideas were then taken and divided into 3 heats comprised of 3 contestants, whom would each get to film their entry for 5 days. From these videos a winner from each heat was chosen by the most online votes through the companies website while the videos were also being promoted on social networking sites such as YouTube, blogs, Flckr and Facebook. The 3 contestants with the most votes, then played tourist for a day driving through town in their new Tiguan, hitting target spots in a scavenger hunt type game while being professionally documented. These 3 final videos were again posted online where viewers could watch and choose a winner to go home with the new Volkswagen Tiguan. Voters were also given a chance to test drive the Tiguan for 3 months, and a few other weekend giveaways were also given out.

 The idea for this campaign was innovative of the time, as it gave consumers a chance to see real video footage of other consumers test driving the car through various tracks and obstacles set up. Volkswagen designed the car to take the effort out of driving with advanced technology features including park assist system which actually parks the car for you. This consumer to consumer type of advertising was a brilliant way to highlight the car’s features without making it appear as a direct ad from the company and more of a personal review. This shows confidence from Volkswagen in the quality and customer satisfaction of their vehicles, ultimately leading consumers to trust in the brand more. They chose likable contestants, like the winner Harriet, an upbeat mother and school teacher who brought children along for part of her video review while she was dressed as a clown. This is a great combination of online and offline interaction between Volkswagen and it’s customers. The People’s Reviewer twitter account only managed to gain 1200 followers and the top YouTube submissions from contestants have around a few thousand views as well. Although the initial idea of “The People’s Reviewer” is a good campaign the company could have included more online interaction and advertising to get consumers involved in the whole process of the test drives and choosing a winner. Could have conducted more contests on the side to keep people interested and want to be a part of the campaign themselves as Mercedes has successfully been able too recently.

 Forward a year and a half and Mercedes has completely innovated Volkswagen’s social media ad campaign approach to build hype around the new Mercedes-Benz models they are releasing, in what they named the “Mercedes-Benz Tweet Race.” Mercedes developed Twitter fueled vehicles which actually respond to tweeted commands. To see more on this innovative technology, users were directed to the Mercedes Facebook page, which users had to ‘like’ to find out more about the innovative technology. This essentially made the viewer one of the 92 000 members on the companies page, so they would now continually receive updates and news from the company on their Facebook News Feed. Test footage of the prototype Twitter powered Mercedes were shown doing everything from as simple to turning lights and engine on and off, to actually reverse parking itself, all through tweeting commands powered to the vehicle. The footage was used to entice viewers into learning more about these innovative vehicles and want to become apart of the interactive campaign. The race consisted of 4 teams, with each team comprised of a pair of Twitter savvy drivers and a celebrity coach including Pete Wentz, Rev Run, Serena Williams and Nick Swisher. The celebrity support offered the campaign even more buzz as each of them have millions of Twitter followers to potentially grab the attention of. Each pair of drivers drove a Twitter-fueled Mercedes-Benz from different destination points from February 2-4 to meet in Dallas for the Super Bowl. The winner was then decided not by who got their first, but which team generated the most Twitter activity, or what Mercedes called “Twitter Fuel” throughout the race.The winning team would receive a pair of brand new 2012 Mercedes-Benz C Class Coupes and $45 000 would be donated to the celebrities charity of choice. To get others involved Twitter followers were instructed to pick a team to follow and would be advised on specific tweets to post which included the team of their choice’s hashtag and whatever help the team needed along the race. Unlike the Volkswagen campaign, Mercedes made it more intriguing and interactive for people to stay involved and interested in the campaign, even though they would not win a new car themselves. Opposed to simply clicking a vote button for the winner of your choice, as in the Volkswagen campaign, here participants were asked to tweet specific things for the team making it more interactive, making them feel as they too were apart of the team and the mission to get to the finish. The teams would send out tweets while on the road for ex “We REALLY need fuel!!! #MBteamS” and followers were to copy and paste the tweet. Followers even participated by helping to create a Google Doc for one of the teams to list and track items on a scavenger hunt the teams had to complete along the way. For all the devoted followers efforts, Mercedes gave a trip for 2 to a Mercedes-Benz sponsored event of the winners choice and the winning team also chose 20 MVT’s (Most Valuable Tweeters), who won an exclusive Mercedes-Benz luggage set. This was an incredibly successful campaign for Mercedes as each of the teams had tens of thousands of supporters. Mercedes ad chief Steve Cannon believed the “combination of our advertising and the Twitter Race will create the type of ‘living’ advertisement that engages people in new ways” ( [|__http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2011/01/mercedes-holds-twitter-race-for-super-bowl.html__] ) I believe they achieved this by increasing their social media audience, and also engaged a new audience as Mercedes generally targets a more mature market segment, this campaign was a step at attracting a younger demographic, especially with all of the buzz surrounding the engineering innovation of Twitter fueled technology.

 In conclusion both of these online advertising campaigns do a good job at exposing the new vehicles through use of consumers and online social media. Mercedes used a more innovative and interactive way of attracting participants, though this is to be expected as it was produced a year later, as technology, social media and advertisements have all evolved as well.

__ Works Cited __
Kiley, David. Mercedes holds twitter race for Super Bowl. AdWeek found online at <[|__http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2011/01/mercedes-holds-twitter-race-for-super-bowl.html__]> Cited on February 4, 2011. Online Source <[|__http://www.thepeoplesreviewer.com__]/> Cited on February 4, 2011. Online source <[|__http://www.mbtweetrace.com/mercedes/map.jsv__]> Cited on February 4, 2011.