The Gypsy Cab Project
Katie Bastian
I was reading through my Marketing Daily online, when I came across a great viral marketing success story.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the creative agency of record for Volkswagen US, created a very successful viral marketing campaign for the re-release of the Volkswagen Rabbit. According to an article published on ClickZ.com http://www.clickz.com, the purpose of this campaign was to position the Rabbit as an ideal vehicle for city drivers.
The project centers around Steve, a filmmaker from Colorado, who has never driven in New York City. He drives around The Big Apple, in the Volkswagen Rabbit, that is outfitted to look like a NYC cab. As he drives around the city, the hidden cameras on the dashboard capture the distinctive qualities of city driving.
For example, he picks up the “Classic New-Yorkers”, college students who move to the city for the summer, and a pair of traveling foreigners from Switzerland who are pure entertainment in the back seat. Steve has 14 days to complete this documentation. These videos can all be seen on the Gypsy Cab Project website http://www.gypsycabproject.com.
Why was this such a great example of viral marketing success?
Viral marketing can be defined as a marketing technique that seeks to increase brand awareness through word of mouth. In order to be successful, it must be attention-grabbing, entertaining and engaging. The point of viral, or word of mouth, is to get people talking about the product or service – both socially and in the media.
This campaign proved to meet the goals of a successful viral marketing campaign by being attention grabbing (the name itself is intriguing), entertaining (videos involving real people creating comical situations), and engaging (the internet was the perfect medium to facilitate engagement because people navigate the website themselves).
In addition, it garnered plenty of media attention. Just Google “The Gypsy Cab Project” and you will find plenty of outlets that covered this story.
After I heard about The Gypsy Cab Project, I was curious to see what the car itself was all about. The marketing-masterminds enticed me enough to check out the Volkswagen website http://www.vw.com.
But did I tell my friends about it?
Well, I’m writing about it on a blogsite – so I guess that is proof enough.