Bernbach, a bespoke model part of the Omnicom family, has unveiled a new campaign for Volkswagen titled ‘Let’s go for a drive’ to life. The ad depicts that you don’t have to go far to find an exciting drive.
Welcome to “Walkinshaw World” – a continent-sized amusement park where every road is a ride. Hundreds of roads across Australia were identified and analysed for their unique features, geography and driving characteristics, then transformed to become an epic line-up of themed rides. From winding roads to steep climbs, sweeping stretches and white-knuckle drops, Australia’s existing road network becomes the perfect site for the thrilling Walkinshaw World.
The idea comes to life across the country through targeted out-of-home, giving familiar stretches of asphalt suitably thrilling new identities. Sydney’s Pacific Motorway is dubbed ‘The Big Dipper’ to match its unofficial nickname, Queensland’s Gateway Motorway becomes ‘The Gold Coaster’, and Melbourne’s elevated West Gate Freeway becomes ‘The Highline’. Bathurst’s iconic Mount Panorama circuit earns its place as ‘The Mountain’.
Like every good amusement park, there’s a ride for everyone, so the campaign comes to life at a national level through Volkswagen dealerships, where drivers can book their own ‘Test Ride’ specific to their local area. The agency developed an AI-powered mapping tool to explore Australia’s national road network and identify hundreds of suitable routes within a specific radius of each Volkswagen dealership.
Using each dealership as a geographic hub, the system scanned surrounding roads for combinations of terrain changes, elevation, gradient, curvature and local landmarks, then generated multiple bespoke routes designed to showcase the Amarok’s capabilities.
The routes were plotted on a live dashboard with Google maps integration, complete with start and end points and route statistics. A preferred route was then selected in close proximity to each dealership, manually given a unique ride name and a bespoke visual identity, with more than 100 unique ‘attractions’ added to the data-driven blueprint for Walkinshaw World.
The campaign’s hero film provides an introduction to Walkinshaw World, offering drivers a priority pass to some of its most spectacular attractions, including The Corkscrew, Croc River Rapids and Drop Bear’s Drop.
The Amarok V6 W600 is a ute, developed in partnership with Australia’s Walkinshaw Automotive Group.
Bernbach creative director Steve Hey said: “Ute advertising has traditionally been about going off road, but drivers actually spend most of their time on it.. Australia has its fair share of roads but not that many theme park rides, so it made sense to redress that balance and create our own theme park, complete with real fiberglass crocodiles.”
Creative director, Owen Bryson added: “Rollercoaster engineers design rides using something called ‘thrill physics’. We thought, given the experts at Walkinshaw had created something so thrilling to drive, we should lean into it. Which, interestingly, is also the best way to ride a rollercoaster.”
Creative director, Anna Paine said: “Once we started looking at Australia’s roads as rides, we needed the signage to bring it all to life. So we found a way to blend theme park design with the visual language of ute culture, then spent a slightly unreasonable amount of time naming and ‘precision engineering’ more than 100 attractions. The nice thing about a theme park this size is that every ride has its own style but still feels like it belongs to the same world.”
Michelle Rowney, head of marketing and product at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles said: “The Amarok V6 W600 was developed specifically for Australian drivers and conditions, combining the capability customers expect from Amarok with Walkinshaw’s local engineering expertise. Walkinshaw World is a creative way of celebrating the diverse roads Australians drive every day and showcasing the confidence, performance and driving experience that define the W600.”
Walkinshaw World rolls out nationally across film, targeted out-of-home, social and the nationwide Test Rides dealer activation this month, with media planning and buying support from PHD.
Credits:
Client: Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles
Creative Agency: Bernbach, part of the Omnicom family
Media Agency: PHD Media
Production Company: Finch
Post Production: Heckler
Music & Sound: Studio Tonic
