{"id":30851,"date":"2025-06-30T07:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T07:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ispot-local-2.local\/?p=642"},"modified":"2025-06-30T09:42:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T16:42:14","slug":"sound-and-style-how-volkswagens-drive-like-somebody-drove-higher-breakthrough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/sound-and-style-how-volkswagens-drive-like-somebody-drove-higher-breakthrough\/","title":{"rendered":"Sound and Style: How Volkswagen\u2019s \u2018Drive Like Somebody\u2019 Drove Higher Breakthrough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Volkswagen of America rolled out a new campaign for the redesigned third-generation Tiguan SUV. The fresh take on Tiguan sports a new look and a clear focus as a roomy two-row powerhouse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Collaborating with agency Johannes Leonardo, the campaign\u2019s central message revolves around the tagline, \u201cNow anybody can drive like Somebody.\u201d The first spot in the series, titled \u201cThe Dogs,\u201d combines stylish visuals with the soul anthem \u201cMr. Big Stuff\u201d by Jean McKnight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This campaign is the beginning of a multi-spot series, featuring actor Timothy Simons, which launched in June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#4ac500;font-size: 24px;\"><strong>Here\u2019s what iSpot\u2019s Creative Assessment platform revealed on actual viewer response to the spot.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081142\/iSpot-VW-Creative-Spotlight-Template-v3.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#4ac500;font-size: 24px;\"><strong>The Details:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The &#8220;Mr. Big Stuff&#8221; soundtrack along with the adorable dogs (characters) delivered exceptionally strong breakthrough for &#8220;Drive Like Somebody,&#8221; each of which were more impressionable vs the average non-lux auto ad at 3X the rate:<br \/><br \/>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The new Tiguan :30 resonated particularly well with female viewers and M21-35; however, the creative met normative response benchmarks for the category (past year) among older males as well, pointing to broad reach media, if desired.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Of course, this spot by design was not particularly informative on the Tiguan vehicle itself, which likely tempered consumer intent to some extent (still within normative range).<br \/><br \/><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Although VW unaided recall appears to have trailed the norm of 83%, multiple misspellings for Volkswagen were seen that render recall at about-norm levels.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081146\/iSpot-VW-v1_01.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;Drive Like Somebody&#8221; appealed broadly across auto intender groups as well as consumers considering compacts, sedans, and SUVS:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081150\/iSpot-VW-v1_02.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Second-by-second trace reveals a bump in engagement at each dog scene but viewer comments reflected the missing vehicle information (intended on VW\u2019s part for this first teaser):<br \/><br \/>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>While grabbing Attention and highly Likeable, entertaining, and even relatable, few viewers recalled the Tiguan model on an unaided basis (2% as seen on the first chart above) and just five verbatims included the model specifically.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For a subset of viewers, the ad screamed luxury to the point of feeling out of touch.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081153\/iSpot-VW-v1_03.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#4ac500;font-size: 24px;\"><strong>Sample comments on &#8220;Drive Like Somebody&#8221; :30<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe music IMMEDIATELY got my attention. I loved the use of the natural color tones. The VW vehicle itself is stunning. The absolute best part was the dogs featured.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a good idea, finding a niche like dogs and have them to compare and see the bulldog, as if the other dogs are jealous of him. I think it would&#8217;ve been 100x better if you included what features the car has. Would bring way more attention.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI mean, too much dog, not enough car&#8230;\u201d<br \/><em>Male 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI really like the message of this ad. The fanciful dogs looking at the bulldog in the Tiguan is pretty funny. I totally get the message and I think it&#8217;s a great ad.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI loved the ad. It had all the good points I really enjoy: a good background track, a cool car, and dogs. The ad was fun to watch and very informative.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe ad shows mostly wealthy people and doesn&#8217;t really give hope to middle or low-class people of ever having one.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cAbsolutely love the dogs in the ad. My dogs love to be in the car so I could totally relate to it and the music was appropriate.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 50+<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI like the entertaining music and, most of all, the fun antics of the dogs and their body language\/facial expressions.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe message at the end is nice but up until that, it seems like you are just marketing toward a wealthy or luxury audience (of dog lovers?). It felt out of touch until the literal last second. I just immediately was like \u2018yeah, I&#8217;m not in that tax bracket.\u2019\u201d<br \/><em>Female 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cShame on you for associating a decent, down-to-earth product with social climbing frauds. Guess that makes you one.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 50+<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe ad doesn&#8217;t stand out from other car ads and it doesn&#8217;t go into detail about important features about the vehicle. For example, it doesn&#8217;t talk about the vehicle\u2019s fuel efficiency or the safety features.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Many of the best received non-lux auto ads over the past 90 days addressed the ongoing auto tariff situation, with mentions of price actions\/maintenance, investment in America, assembly in American plants and other patriotic tones appealing broadly:<br \/><br \/>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>A feature-focused Ford Bronco :15 and a visually imaginative :30 for the Toyota 4Runner also enjoyed strong positive reactions from American consumers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081155\/iSpot-VW-v1_04.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081159\/iSpot-VW-v1_05.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>As would be expected, the feature-centric Ford ad was most persuasive to one-year auto intenders, with Toyota&#8217;s appeal earning the strongest Top Box consideration (40%; +9 pts over norm):<br \/><br \/>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;Drive Like Somebody&#8221; sparked purchase\/visit intent among 62% of one-year intenders (at norm), the lowest among this set of competitive creatives.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Tiguan ad still enjoyed even more positive response among these one-year intenders vs the general audience.<br \/><br \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#4ac500;font-size: 24px;\"><strong>Among one-year auto intenders:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081202\/iSpot-VW-v1_06.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The Tiguan spot saw a slight relative weakness among viewers with incomes &lt;$40K compared to the competitive set. Given the perception of luxury\/higher price reflected in viewer comments above, this could point to opportunity for VW to call out the new lowered starting price in future ads:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081205\/iSpot-VW-v1_07.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Among one-year intenders, the &#8220;Drive Like Somebody&#8221; (Top Dogs) concept felt Upscale, which could be setting up an opportunity to draw attention and offer value once the new MRSP is revealed:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/hub-cdn.ispot.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/26081208\/iSpot-VW-v1_08.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"color:#4ac500;font-size: 24px;\"><strong>One-year intenders<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe dogs were funny and made this car look upper class.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLiked the vibe and the visual scenes of luxury with VW. Hippy and bougie.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u201cVolkswagen is just as classy as the more expensive brands.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt was clever and made me think the brand was top quality.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 50+<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo see Volkswagen as luxury cars.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt looks high class and I like the scenes with the dogs.\u201d<br \/><em>Female 21-35<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt made me think that they offer sleek and stylish vehicles.\u201d<br \/><em>Male 36-49<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Advertisers need to identify the creative that will drive business outcomes and ensure that in-market execution aligns against the highest potential ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/demo\">Schedule a demo<\/a> to find out how your brand can partner with iSpot to quickly solve both challenges simultaneously, delivering high-performing creative while boosting the effectiveness of planning and in-market execution to achieve\u2014and outperform\u2014campaign objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"font-size:12px;\"><i>Creative Agency: Johannes Leonardo<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Volkswagen of America rolled out a new campaign for the redesigned third-generation Tiguan SUV. The fresh take on Tiguan sports a new look and a clear focus as a roomy two-row powerhouse. Collaborating with agency Johannes Leonardo, the campaign\u2019s central message revolves around the tagline, \u201cNow anybody can drive like Somebody.\u201d The first spot in&#8230; Read More<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":30853,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[497],"ispot_product_categories":[],"acf":{"expiration_date":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30858,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30851\/revisions\/30858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30851"},{"taxonomy":"ispot_product_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ispot.tv\/hub\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ispot_product_categories?post=30851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}