Confidence is the reason people buy SUVs it seems, sitting there in your metallic fortress above the traffic and the rest of the world.
Volkwagen is running a ‘confidence content’ series through adam&eveDDB for its SUV range and client and agency have pulled out all the stops for this one. Cinéma vérité seems to have taken root at the London agency – as seen in its latest ad for McCain – and ‘Second Speech,’ features one Jorden Oldham, first off freezing when trying to deliver the best man’s speech at his friend’s wedding.
A&E group CCO Ben Priest says: “This was a great job and also a great experience. Helping Jorden to face up to the past and put right something that had gone so badly wrong and hung over him for so long. It’s a lovely, lateral take on confidence.”
Volkswagen UK communications manager Sweta Dusara says: “Authenticity was key to expressing the insight that Volkswagen SUVs instill confidence in our drivers, so finding the right story to tell was critical. Jorden’s story was perfect, real-to-life and relatable. I’m delighted that Jorden’s redemption was so wonderfully enabled by Volkswagen.”
Creatives were Jonas Roth and Rasmus Smith Bech and the director Max Fisher from Outsider, who evidently worked a miracle on the unlikely raw material of Jorden. At this rate he’ll have his own TV series soon.
A&E’s output is nearly always good and, often, rather better than that.
But every now and then it produces something you just haven’t seen before. In A&E’s case John Lewis and Harvey Nichols, both big award winners, come immediately to mind.
This, I think, is in the same class and for VW a worthy successor to numerous great TV ads, beginning with DDB’s ‘Snow Plow’ 50 or so years ago. Whether or not it wows awards juries we’ll have to see.
MAA creative scale: 9.5.
