• by Karl Greenberg , May 8, 2007

Audi is breaking a new integrated ad campaign this week--the first since 2002, and the first from its new agency Venables Bell and Partners, which signed on as AOR in January. The company hopes to break the glass ceiling between it and first-tier U.S. luxury brands Lexus, BMW and Mercedes.

With the new tag line, "Truth in Engineering," the campaign also reflects a greater commitment to interactive media for the Auburn Hills, Mich.-based U.S. sales arm of the Volkswagen AG division. The initial push is for the new Audi TT roadster and coupe, a vehicle that also serves as Audi's "halo" for performance and design.

The effort includes two 15-second teaser ads for TT and several 30-second spots, including an ad promoting Audi's safety engineering and product ads for the A4 sedan and the Q7 SUV. The ads for the TT use a thematic device intended to evoke the speed of the car's transmission. One of the teasers shows a black screen with text reading "0.2 seconds is nothing" followed by a lightning-fast flash of content. Then the message, "Or is it? Missed it? Rewind." The other ad has a similar design.

The idea is that to see that content, which is really several seconds of images with text, one has to either go online and see a slower version of the ad or rewind one's DVR. The teasers and ads drive viewers to TT-truth.com.

Scott Keogh, CMO for Audi of America, says the 0.2-second ad was intended to tie the Audi TT's transmission speed to having the world's fastest ad. Since all media has to be integrated with the Internet, it doesn't matter whether the viewer replays it or goes online; the traditional TV spot no longer engages the viewer, he says.

"We wanted to take advantage of high tech, because our audience is there." He adds that the new tag line, which replaces "Never Follow," is meant to appeal to a sense of, well, truth. "Today, U.S. consumers are seeking honesty, authenticity and substance," he says.

He says the company spoke with outside experts, journalists, race car drivers, and enthusiasts, as well as owners, before developing the campaign. "Among the core of people, Audi was seen as a leadership brand. We just needed to get story out to America. Owners say they were looking for a little more confirmation, more public prestige."

Among the TV spots is an ad for the A4 sedan that pokes fun at Lexus' self-parking LS 460L. In Audi's ad, a camera pans a serene suburban street, birds chirping, with cars parked on either side. As the camera pauses on a car-length space between two vehicles, we hear the incongruous keening of a race car. Suddenly, an Audi A4 screeches into camera view, brakes, and does a perfect 180-degree fishtail that lands it in the space between the two parked cars.

Says Keogh, "The intent was, we have a point of view on technology that isolates and moves you away from driving. That's not Audi." The ad, he says, is intended to trumpet the virtues of Audi as a "driver's" car.

He says media will be on two fronts: a national media buy on programs like "CSI," "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," and "Lost," and regional urban market efforts with spot buys on sports programming like the NBA and MLB. "To stick with the excitement factor," he says, "we are doing a lot with automotive media. The TT teasers launched yesterday, with the entire Audi campaign breaking May 14."

Audi is gearing up for a major product/feature-film placement program and event initiatives, per Keogh, over the next month or two.

Keogh also says marketing spend is up over last year, but the big allocation shift is to online media. "From a media point of view, we have historically focused on magazine, newspaper and cable. What we have done with this campaign is to focus on TV, with TV in spot markets where we get the best response. Second, there's a huge increase in online spending--an uptick in online in general," he says, noting that 88% of Audi buyers spent time on AudiUSA.com. "If you look at the sweet spot of the brand, technology and the Web is it."

The launch effort presages a raft of new vehicles for the U.S., including the 2008 A5 and S5 cars and the R8 in September. For the R8, Audi's first high-performance sports car--and a direct challenge to cars like the Porsche 911--the company has launched a microsite featuring a series of animated movies showing the car zooming along different roads.

Keogh says these new vehicles are just the beginning of an effort to boost sales. He says the corporation will invest $15 billion in new products and facilities through 2011, with about 75% earmarked for new products. Rupert Stadler, who replaced Martin Winterkorn as Audi's CEO in February, wants the company to sell 1.5 million vehicles per year by 2015. The company, which saw a 63% net income gain last year, hopes to add 18 models by then.

Audi has been focused on getting distribution in line, and expects to have 110 exclusive dealers by year's end. "We have seen dramatic improvements in residual value of our vehicles, third-party reviews, and safety ratings," he says.

"With this we wanted to work harder on emotion and soul, to popularize and energize the brand. We are outspent and will continue to be outspent sometimes three or five to one, so it's going to take more than minor pushes. We want to grow this brand, and it will require America to see us differently. Here in the States we have to get ourselves up the food chain to be tier one and recognized."