• by Karl Greenberg , September 10, 2013

Volkswagen has a kind of new superhero, kind of, in the vein of Captain Klutz.

The fictive Johnny Conquest (which sounds a lot like Johnny Quest for us older people, but refers to the marketing term) who insinuates himself into various jobs and activities, acting as if he works there, while he obviously doesn't (there's a VW badge on his shirt).

The effort, via Deutsch LA, involved the challenge from the client to show a mess of vehicle features and accolades in one ad, without the ad running at about the pace of a disclaimer at the end of a pharmaceutical spot. 

In the ads, the character extolls the virtues of VW cars while trying to sound like he isn't extolling the cars' virtues. He doesn't bother, however, to learn the slightest thing about the place at which he's supposedly employed.  

In one ad he strolls into a room of office wonks, offering to take them to lunch, "to our favorite place." the staff looks at each other clearly not recognizing this guy. In the car he talks about how great it is. When someone asks if he works for VW, since he does have the VW shirt, he says, “No, I work for the company that we all work for…the place we just left.”

A spokesperson for the agency says the effort is a national retail campaign program and that the character will live on after the two spots.