What if you had the ability to create the most powerful ute ad ever seen, but weren’t allowed to show it? That’s the idea behind Volkswagen’s new campaign for the Amarok V6, the most powerful ute in its class, via DDB Sydney.
‘Too Powerful for TV’, the latest instalment in the Amarok series, tells the story of the most epic ute ad never quite made – complete with a British prima donna director, austere safety officer, and a raft of clever ways to showcase what Aussie car manufacturers have struggled to for years.
Volkswagen commercial vehicles national marketing manager Nick Reid said: “With 580Nm of torque, and 200kW on Overboost, the new Amarok V6 Ultimate 580 is the most powerful ute in its class – a product benefit most marketers dream of. The problem we’ve got is actually demonstrating that power.”
“So, the idea behind our new campaign is to show it, without breaking a single advertising code of conduct. We’re getting the punter onside with us, taking them on a journey and giving them what we all want to see – a powerful ute doing powerful stuff, in an entertaining way,” he said.
DDB Sydney creative partner Vincent Osmond said this new campaign builds on the previous award-winning Amarok campaigns from DDB Sydney, The Naked Ute and Korama, which were also all about leaning into the problem.
“We had to demonstrate the power of the most powerful ute in its class, But we can’t really show its potential. So, we did what we’ve always done with Amarok; found a way around the problem. What we’ve created is a self-aware, tongue in cheek look behind the scenes at the ute ad we’d all make if we could – or perhaps more poignantly, were allowed to,” he said.
DDB Sydney creative partner Jade Manning added: “We needed to punch above our weight in a big way with this new Amarok campaign. We don’t have the media to engage in a war of attrition with our competitors, so we need to deliver big, fame-driving creative – work that is going to stand out in this world of ‘ute-vertising’.”
“For me, the real fun is the things we couldn’t show. Every time the ute engages in activity that would otherwise be deemed ‘reckless’, a technique is employed to show us, but at the same time not show us, what it did. It’s almost more entertaining not seeing it,” he said.
Reid added: “For ute owners, yes it’s about power credentials, but they also want to know what their ute is actually capable of. That’s the challenge. So, when DDB came to us with this idea about the Amarok being too powerful to advertise we said, ‘this is fantastic’, but even if we can’t show it for real we have to do it for real, because the Amarok can. So, we did. Everything you see the Amarok doing in the commercial it did for real. Sort of,” he said. .
