It’s not that I have any brand preferences, but once again I’m sharing a case from Volkswagen. Somehow the company and their chosen local agencies are just able to come up with brilliant and clever ideas no matter the branding object or focus. I have seen and shared campaigns regarding the Blue Motion technology, special features, cool launches of new models and now the following case, which communicates corporate quality and the use of original autoparts.

We are all aware, that for each successful video on Youtube, there is also poorly made imitations. In some cases it can even be hard to find the true orginal and some of these often bad copies has millions of views! - Thus, why not exploit this fact?

Almap BBDO and Volkswagen Brazil did and decided to sponsor some of the imitations and copies and put a banner in it saying “Don’t accept imitations, prefer original parts”. Besides the clever placement of video ads, clicking the banner would not sent viewers to the VW website, but redirected to the original video.

Check out the case:

The market for small cars is evolving faster than ever and now Toyota is ready to take part and win shares with the new IQ model.

With the agency Happiness from Brussels in Belgium, Toyoto has come up with one of the most clever Google Maps based promotional campaigns yet.

To help promote the small city car the company are driving the IQ around with a 360 degree panoramic camera rig strapped to the roof to capture Street View images and filling in all the blanks on Google Maps.

The campaign, currently running in Belgium, allows anyone to report a small street that doesn’t have Street View on the Toyota IQ - Street View Google Map. The Toyota IQ then travels to the street, captures the Street View images and adds them to the map.

It’s simply such an brilliant idea - The campaign shows off the car and how easy it is to maneuver around in the city and also adds value by completing the maps of the city.

Check it out below and visit the IQ Street View Website for more information..

Thus, I have written about Peugeot’s Social Strategy in Panama and about VW regarding the FlipDrive of Amarok, and of course I then also have to share this little Twitter stunt from Smart, BBDO and LEMURIA in Buenos Aries.

I have somehow totally unintended started a small series of posts concerning different automotive brands and their use of social platforms and thus although this case is now about a month old, it should be among the shared.

Smart, BBDO and LEMURIA Buenos Aries have capitalized on the brand characteristics of being small to make this fun and effective animation that turns the brand’s Argentinean Twitter feed into a stop-motion “commercial” made of 450-plus tweets.

You can see the final effect on the video below, but it’s actually even better to go to Smart Argentina’s Twitter page sign up and play around. Use the “J” key to scroll forward and “K” to shift into reverse, and watch an animated Smart car travelling around the city streets.

Tribu DDB, Panama were briefed to make a social strategy to Peugeot and ended up with a true cross social media campaign with the “Car Show”. I’m not impressed by the engagement effort and idea with hidden pieces of the picture, but sure find it well-integrated with Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest and of course Peugeot’s website…

Check out the case:

Would I love to be the one chosen to follow in the footsteps of Jules Verne’s journey “Around the world in 80 days”? Ohh yes.. :-)

It might have been exhausting and stressful to visit 12 cities on 4 continents in a week, however totally exciting and worth it and not least a cool story to tell. Speaking of story, the idea to display and show off the new smartphone from Nokia during the trip is brilliant, especially since the battery is the USP.

Check out the case below and see more about the campaign on Youtube