Marketing Lessons From Audi's A6 Campaign
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 00:00
By Heidi Tolliver-Nigro
Audi is launching a new advertising campaign for its 2012 A6 sedan that offers a lot of great insights into what makes marketing and advertising (whether television, direct mail, or any other medium) great.
The ad talks about the embarrassing condition of American roads, dominated by ubiquitous potholes and lunatic drivers (one driver texting, another reading a newspaper), and lined with incomprehensible road signs. It does this in a way that makes every driver say, “Uh, huh! That’s right! Uh, huh!”
"The road is not exactly a place of intelligence,” pans the voiceover. “Across the nation, over 100,000 miles of roads and bridges are in disrepair. Add to that countless distractions every mile. Half a million cubic yards of debris, and the 38 million drivers who couldn't pass the driver's exam today."
The ad then contrasts these deplorable exterior driving conditions with the serene and optimal conditions inside the Audi A6, including its luxury interior and MMI touch pad for navigating past traffic jams.
Read a great article on this ad here.
What can we learn from Audi? Whether it’s direct mail, a poster, or anything else, the power is in the ability of the marketer to present a common problem in a way that causes the audience to identify with it at a very personal level. This creates the context for the marketer’s product as the natural solution.
I am reminded of an award-winning newspaper ad for an airline rewards program that showed a man and woman staring longingly at the Canadian Rockies, but with their hands pressed up against wall of glass that prevented them from actually getting there. Ever feel like your airline rewards program is like that? I’m sure lots of people reading the ad did. It’s a powerful image.
These are critical lessons for all aspects of print marketing. We want to talk about all our products’ features and capabilities, but those capabilities only have power when the audience can relate to them. The more emotional you can make this connection, the more powerful the solution will appear.
How are you making an emotional connection in your print advertising?
Heidi Tolliver-Nigro is an industry analyst specializing in digital, 1:1, personalized URLs, QR codes, and other marketing technologies as they apply to print. You can contact her at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
