Volkswagen will reportedly extend its global creative contract with DDB for a further three years. The Omnicom agency has held the account for 60 years now.
The German automotive brand’s contract with DDB ended in 2023, but the agency was given two six-month extensions.
Under the new contract, Omnicom has strategically united its various international agencies to create a “united global group” that showcases its top global talent. Led by a team based in Berlin, this group will work closely with the VW media team at PHD to ensure comprehensive account coverage.
The partnership will also extend to include precision marketing as part of a broader shake-up of the company’s customer experience and production processes.
Volkswagen released its first brand campaign in seven years back in February. The creative concept is centred around the simple life of a lighthouse keeper working and living on an island. With little reason to drive his car around the small island, it is the mail delivery that allows him to get behind the wheel of his Volkswagen and experience the joy of driving.
In March, the Australian branch of the brand produced a seemingly simple device that fits over the car’s front badge. The seamless device emits a warning signal to kangaroo species when a vehicle approaches and could save countless kangaroos, regional Australian drivers, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
Developed over three years by Volkswagen Australia and the DDB Group in consultation with the University of Melbourne and WIRES, Volkswagen’s ‘RooBadge’ is hoped to help reduce collisions with kangaroos, which comprise some 90 per cent of on-road wildlife accidents in this country.
Connecting to an in-car app, RooBadge calibrates a vehicle’s GPS coordinates with specifically developed kangaroo species distribution data. The badge itself is a circular disc some 17cm in diameter that acts as a protective shield, replacing the current Volkswagen roundel/badge.
This conveys a unique audio deterrent for the kangaroo species that inhabits the vehicle’s particular location across Australia.
A mixture of natural and artificial sounds is mixed in real time and projected in a high-frequency audio signal from the front of the vehicle.
PHD currently holds the media account for the automotive brand, having been re-appointed following a lengthy pitch back in June.
