Volkswagen is known for being an innovative car company, with ad campaigns which frequently win awards and uplift their brand. One way their marketing team is able to do this through a concept called “the fun theory”.
The Volkswagen marketing team used behavioural economics to understand how people behave. By combining technology and vinyl, they were able to create “piano” stairs in a subway stop in Germany, which both looked like a piano, and played a tune. These stairs were located right next to an escalator, and focused on encouraging commuters to choose the stairs instead of the escalator, so they could play their own tunes as they went up and down each step.
This initiative was put in place to get people to move more, and ultimately, change how people feel about driving environmentally friendly cars by allowing them to see the fun side of acting responsibly.
The reason this strategy worked so well was that it resonated with a simple human emotion: having fun. When a company is able to associate their brand with an emotion as pure as fun, they’ve already won over the customer. As a result of this campaign, 66% more people chose the stairs as opposed to the escalator.
This idea, simple as it was, brilliantly displays the way that traditional and new media can work together to create something outstanding. The print job in this project was integral to the success of it.
Watch how it was created here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw