• December 10, 2008

Audi will redux its advertising debut in next year's Super Bowl. The Herdon, Va. upmarket sibling of Volkswagen had its first Super Bowl ad in nearly two decades in last year's game.

Audi, whose AOR is San Francisco-based Venables Bell & Partners, will not say what the new creative is for Super Bowl XLIII, but last year's effort had a "Godfather" theme, borrowing from a scene in which a don finds a horse's head in his bed to tout its then-new R8 sports coupe. In the ad, it's the motor oil-soaked grill from a competitive vehicle that appears beneath the sheets.

The company says that the ad boosted traffic to www.audiusa.com by 200%, and the Audi R8 became the top search term on Google immediately following the ad's airing.

Audi is among very few auto brands to boost sales this year.--Karl Greenberg