Volkswagen of America is offering a web-based augment reality experience for the new Taos SUV via QR codes on select Amazon shipping boxes.
Users can experience a virtual drive on a 3D map and add unique sounds along the way. Four musical moods—Road Tripping, Rhythm Kicking, Smooth Gliding, and City Vibing—all with their own color, shift chords as users guide a Taos through various hotspots on the map.
By recording these drives, customers can unlock three free months of Amazon Music.
Over one million boxes will be shipped to Amazon customers across the country. The experience can also be previewed online.
The virtual Taos experience serves as follow-up to the fall campaigns "Drive" and "Road is Home," created in partnership with creative agency The Community, which the automaker appointed as U.S. Hispanic agency of record in May. Johannes Leonardo has served as lead creative agency in the U.S. since 2019, with its appointment predating the arrival of VW CMO Kimberley Gardiner.
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The Amazon box experience brings the rhythm and style of these TV spots to life, Gardiner says. Similar to the TV campaigns, the WebAR experience theme is about the joy of driving, and how it’s more than going from Point A to B, she says.
Last holiday season, Hyundai partnered with Amazon for a promotion. During the month of December, Amazon delivered 4.2 million interactive, Hyundai-branded boxes that directed customers where to go to learn more about the 2021 Santa Fe and a prompt to enter the sweepstakes.
In other marketing news, Volkswagen is joining U.S. Soccer for the second year as presenting partner of U.S. Soccer’s #GivingTuesday campaign to launch the U.S. Soccer One Nation (DEIB) Fund.
The automaker is directing $90,000 of its U.S. Soccer sponsorship to the One Nation Fund, a philanthropic program enabling supporters to contribute to diversity initiatives created under the One Nation banner.
Last year, Volkswagen committed a part of its U.S. Soccer investment to the Jill Ellis Scholarship Fund to empower and advance more female coaches through coaching education scholarships, and the SheChampions Coaching Mentorship Program.