DISQUS

Ian Schafer · 3 months ago

You know, it's a shame. VW has had such an opportunity not only with its products, but with its personality, and with its buying experience. They've missed it every time. The TV spots have been the best thing about them, lately.

torec · 3 months ago

VW is an auto brand that has lost its way. As you point out the cars are probably not that great to begin with. But even worse, they have a long list of bland VW's with different names. Aside from the old bug, the only VW with personality was the Golf (or Rabbit as it was called in some markets). VW tries to be everything to everybody and thereby fails to be anything to anybody. Add to that a fairly hight price in each segment they try to cover and no particular quality reputation and it's clear that advertising can't be the silver bullet. Triple the budget won't help either. This is not a media budget problem or a creative problem. More media and better creative can only marginally affect the situation. VW is a well enough known brand. But it's weak. It stands for nothing. The lackluster cars themselves hurt the brand, not the advertising.

Matt Daniels · 3 months ago

Perhaps this is an ROI play. It may be easier to change agencies for an extra million dollars than re-engineer a product line for a few billion.

And perhaps VW is looking for a different approach to how their cars are perceived--a change of positioning, if you will. I suppose that whatever executive claimed such goals might think that this is doable without a major product overhaul.

Jim · 3 months ago

Have you driven in a Bug lately. The thing is amazing.
The advertising blew. The real tragety was leaving Arnold who actually gave them a whole new audience in a way that only Apple and Jet Blue did. The work from CP+B was like shiny baubles. It had all the digital bells and whistles but lacked style and substance. In short, the advertising, especially the brand building just plane blew.

Carri Bugbee · 3 months ago

Alan, you make excellent points. Ogilvy’s “big idea” approach to advertising is circling the drain – at least for big-ticket items. If the question is “Dawn or Palmolive?” I think hype and image still has a place. Who really cares to research the finer points of dish soap? But when it comes to a $20k+ car, that’s another story. Data is fast, free and pretty damn accurate in the aggregate. Who would want the details before plunking down their dollars?

Given VW’s young-ish, hipster image (no doubt courtesy of Crispin Porter Bogusky), it would be mighty surprising if VW didn’t get that. But perhaps they don’t. Or there’s another story behind the client departure.

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

@Ian - agree - the brand has such a great rep, even some better-than-average products would have helped

@Tore - as per Ian, the brand has definitely lost its way and made many of mistakes big US automakers did

@Matt - while ROI and new positioning are likely what they were thinking, there's no upside for them in either- a new agency does nothing to help their cause and new positioning only drives more people to the web to learn that the cars are mediocre at best.

@Jim: I knew someone was going to go down that rabbit hole: the Bug may be a good car, but the rest of the line wasn't. Nothing Arnold could have done would change that. Apple & Jet Blue succeed because the products live up to the ads. You've reiterated exactly what the brand managers must have been thinking, but without decent cars (or with only one decent car) that's a dead end street

@Carri: Yes, "Big Idea" needs to be very big and broad these days - "just do it" works because it holds a wide range of executions under the umbrella. And agree that people don't research soap, but cars-- definitely.

willida · 3 months ago

The problem is not the advertising, and it is not the product.

Volkswagen doesn't have a good presence in social media--the media of their target markets. This is a mistake--did the ad agency make it, or did VW?

I like the work of CPB. It was effective--VW had their best month in August since December, 2005 in the states. The Jetta was their best seller, and the Routan was their second best. 2009 U.S. sales are up over 2008.

The negative reviews of the Routan are based on 2 premises: 1. the Routan is based on the Chrysler Town & Country. Anything Chrysler is bad. 2. the Routan is not "Volkswagen" enough. But these are false assumptions. 1. Chrysler makes such a bad mini-van that it put Ford and GM out of the business, and chased others back to their Oriental homes. 2. Mini-van owners would be overwhelmed and put off by full Volkswagen- a la their EuroVan.

The majority of negative reviewers are not mini-van candidates. The Routan is not a Hyundai Genesis, but try to haul a sheet of drywall in a Hyundai Genesis. For that matter, you can't get rear heated seats in the Genesis, but they are standard on more than one trim line of the Routan. It is interesting to see how closely the engineering specs and luxury specs of the Car of the Year match the Routan.

Go beyond the the negative reviewers (Motor Trend speaks well of the Routan) and get to the blogs of actual owners and you see nothing but raves. Mini-van shoppers who go to the showroom find a vehicle that has more features for the money than Chrysler, Honda, or Toyota. Volkswagen is well situated in Europe and they have the will to buy market share in the U.S.--to the benefit of VW buyers.

So, the statement that they don't have a vehicle that meets the hype is wrong.

Let's put this in real-world perspective. Volkswagen wants to increase U.S. market share and is succeeding. VW wants to enter the mini-van market, and it has (more Routans were sold in August than the Eurovan did in it's last year, maybe two). Did they fire CPB for the successes, for the fact that CPB didn't manage social media, or for some other reason?

VW has substance. I hope the next agency maintains the momentum and improves VW's position in the digital world.

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

Interesting perspective David, but perhaps what you're saying is that
they need to manage SEO better and/or do a better job of PR?

Because when I did a search for all their models in order to write
this post, most of the initial reviews-- the ones on the first page-
were negative. That's about as far as most people go, so I'm not sure
many potential minivan buyers will see your message about the
incorrectness of the other reviewers. And even if you are correct
about the Routan, isn't that just one model out of many? What about
their other cars?

As for CPB, I seem to recall them doing a number of social media
efforts for VW, including a "WHich VW Is Right For You" promotion that
was one of the first to use the scrape-the-users-FB-profile technique,
and thus got a decent amount of buzz.

Thanks for the comment and the insiders POV. Can I take it that you are a very satisfied Routan owner yourself?

Matt · 3 months ago

Hmm - I agree to a point. Some VW cars do need help but the Golf, GTI, Rabbit, EOS and Taureg do OK. Also, with AUDI as a big brother, they have a vastly untapped resource for hot automotive crossover. Maybe that's a bad since GM/Ford lost huge with that move.

Either way, I think you're right that they need to focus on the product, but CPB isn't set up for the kind of work they want to do and maybe that's part of why they chose not to defend. Think about it - taking on a hug account like that means the agency would have to change. Sometimes to maintain your mojo you have to turn down some money.

VinnyWarren · 3 months ago

very true. i went shopping for a car recently. advertising plays a very minor role really. and VW's selection is stuck in the 90s. it's boring and old. where is their Scion Xb?

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loebster1 · 3 months ago

Very smart, and very accurate, Alan. It's the classic Bernbach conundrum: great advertising can only make a bad product fail faster. 10 years ago, when VW launched the New Beetle and revamped the Jetta and Passat into "Everyman's Audi," they were hitting their market smack in the bullseye. They made the German driving experience affordable. The product lived up to the brand.

Since then, they tried to out-Mercedes Mercedes (Phaeton), and go after the SUV crowd. We (the brand stewards at Arnold) hollered that Wolfsburg was losing focus, but they had their corporate goals.

Now, after CP+B's run, both the advertising and the product have strayed far from the brand we love as "Volkswagen". A great agency can restore the vibe to the communications, but it won't click until Wolfsburg restores the promise to the cars themselves.

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

Thanks for the input Carl.

For those of you who don't know Carl Loeb (aka loebster1), he was a key part of the creative group that did the great Volkswagen work at Arnold in the late 90s and early 00s. So his take on what VW is going through is very well informed and much appreciated.

tjcnyc · 3 months ago

I agree. The product comes first and always has. The difference today is that word-of-mouth moves at the speed of light.

Advertising can't bamboozle as easily as it used to. But it still has a lot of power to shape opinion, including online. If consumers really like a company, they are more patient with problems and more forgiving of the occasional mis-step.

It's far from a cure-all, but it helps.

Lastly if you start as a new CMO and know you won't have new product to sell for another 3 years, you've got to try *something*, even if in your gut you suspect it won't make much difference.

Michael Maurillo · 3 months ago

I'm very late to the debate on this, but as someone who just completed the full VW purchase cycle, I think I have some relevant perspective to ad. I won't bore you with the full back story, but just focus on a couple points:

1. No argument on the need to focus on one's product, but there is a layer in the auto industry that has a huge impact on the purchase experience and that is the dealership. Just about every VW dealership that I spoke and/or met with (probably about 6) were all awful, and i mean AWFUL. The VW brand successfully extends into the physical space of the showroom, but that is where it ends. Not that I really expected more, but it did surprise me just how poor and unprofessional the service was.

A new agency will be able to get all the signage and protocol their hearts desire into the showroom, but they'll never get to the 1-to-1 dealership sales experience itself.

2. I will disagree, though, that the VW brand is as look down upon as badly as your Google searches might be showing, Alan. I am now an owner of a mini-van and the only thing that allows me to save some face with my friends is that it's a VW. I've heard the same thing from just about everyone I've told when they ask what kind it is - "well, at least it's a Volkswagen." These aren't hard core auto enthusiasts. They probably don't know the difference between a 6 cylinder and a Hemi (I certainly don't). They're just drivers and from what I can tell, they still dig what VW stands for.

Alan Wolk · 3 months ago

They were just being nice to you Mike ;)

Seriously though-- VW had a good reputation for many years. But when
people go out to buy a car, they're finding the experts are less than
thrilled. I suspect that for most people, that's the only time they
pay attention to sites like Jalopnik or Consumer Reports or Car &
Driver: when they're at the active purchase stage. VW is not the only
brand that's been able to glide on its former glory.

Promotional Products · 3 months ago

Interesting piece here, I've never owned a VW so I don't know much about the quality of their vehicles. I think the emergence of social networks will outdo the magic words that VW will plan on using. Sometimes it is all about quality especially when speaking of a vehicle.