Volkswagen Canada bring Nascar driver Maryeve Dufault home to Sorel-Tracy to race with the entire town filming

“With full sport suspension and 228 horsepower, the GLI is the most powerful Jetta ever,” says Virginie Ludmer, marketing manager, Volkswagen Canada.  “It’s such an exciting, eye-catching ride, we knew people would want to capture footage of the vehicle in action.  So, instead of filming our own ad, we wanted to show off the Jetta GLI through the eyes of our fans.” 

It's a very clever idea, everyone with a camera who gets a good shot will want to share it with their friends, so this has immediate social potential built in right there.
“Power to the People,” edits multiple shots from the same angles taken by nearly 100 people to tell the story of Nascar driver Maryeve Dufault returning to her hometown of Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, for an adrenaline-charged joyride in the Jetta GLI.

Developed in partnership by DDB Canada and performance driving and content crew Hoonigan, director Brian Scotto, famed director of the Ken Block’s Gymkhana series, armed locals with a how-to of optimal camera angles and techniques; but also, with the creative freedom to capture the unexpected and to experiment. The content was then woven together to tell a high-performance story of the car from the people’s perspective.

“VW has always been the people’s car, so it was only natural to enlist them to tell our story,” says Brent Choi, CEO and chief creative officer, DDB Canada.  “That said, this isn’t your every day crowd-sourced film.”

Campaign creative includes a 90, 30 and 15-second versions of the film, in both English and French, which appear in cinemas and online

Ad agency: DDB Canada