Visit Volkswagen's "What the people want" microsite and the first thing you'll hear is the squeaky brakes of Max, the talking classic Beetle who stars in his own celebrity-filled talk show in TV spots, as he rolls up to a feedback-producing microphone. Pause too long before taking part in the central attraction of the site -- the yes or no voting area that asks questions ranging from "Do you want bloggers to shut up?" to "Do you want to live forever?" -- and the playful black bug pipes up with one of several encouraging comments in his exaggerated German accent: "Don't be a scary rabbit, go ahead and vote!" or "I can't vote for you, I don't have any hands."

Max, the brand's official spokescar, appears in the German carmaker's new advertising campaign, "It's what the people want," out of Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Boulder, Colo., and Miami. At the center of the multiplatform launch is a national polling effort that utilizes user-generated content in the form of voters' responses gathered online and via mobile devices and distributes the results across the Web via a site, vw.com/whatthepeoplewant, online banners and outdoor executions.

Last month, VW unveiled a key element in the buzz-building campaign, a 3,685-square-foot interactive billboard in New York's Times Square. It pictures the bug parked behind his microphone, alongside the headline "The people want their voice to be heard." VW is the first brand to utilize the interactive technology of the ABC SuperSign, which allows a two-way dialogue with passersby via SMS. Using their cell phones, pedestrians text their yes or no responses to the poll questions appearing on the sign, and through WAP technology, their texted votes are recorded live on a news ticker.

After any poll reaches 1,000 votes, the results are displayed via Web banners using advanced keyword tagging to match up relevant content. For example, an ad on an article page about the Democratic primaries uses keyword targeting to ensure the most relevant user-generated statement is displayed. The polling questions range from philosophical queries such as "Do you want to live forever?" to the topical such as "Do you want to know the truth behind gas prices?"

As an added bonus, participants can purchase T-shirts displaying the poll of their choice and the name of who submitted it, a detail which is also displayed beneath each question on the Web site and online banners.

"We've never done anything like this before," explains Jeff Benjamin, interactive creative director at Crispin. "We've pitched things along these lines to clients, but VW was the first to embrace it."

The agency, which has been recognized for its innovative use of media, has created mobile applications for clients before, among them, a Verizon cell phone game for Mini, and an interactive mobile application for Burger King that allowed users to play music into their cell phones and the receive a text message with the title and artist. This VW effort is the agency's first significant project in the mobile space.

"Part of the success of the campaign is based on being in places where you have a passionate audience … and for us Times Square was a perfect place to do something like this," Benjamin says. "These days for advertisers it's important to be in places that are a little more unexpected simply because consumers are becoming a little bit numb to a traditional media like TV and print, even to a degree online."



To create a unique user experience, says Benjamin, the agency needed to push the campaign beyond online staples such as banners and microsites. "Suddenly we're in the position where some of the stuff that we are doing online is now fairly traditional," he says. "It's interesting thinking about nontraditional things in digital -- digital signs, gaming, all of this stuff is nontraditional digital."

Scott Prindle, interactive technical director at Crispin, who joined the agency two-and-a-half years ago from R/GA to build the agency's tech team, adds, "There are so many different digital channels, now we can think about this real-time data flow online and extend that to outdoor digital signage."

To develop this effort, the 30-member technology team, which created the application used in the initiative, had to work closely with the creative team. "In order to do this, you really need to have a team of developers in-house," stresses Benjamin. While the agency has Flash developers and database experts on staff, he says they are considered "creative thinkers" and are included in concept meetings from the very start.

When Crispin decided to add technological capabilities two-and-a-half years ago, Benjamin explains, the agency discussed where the staffers should be housed and considered placing them with the production department before deciding with co-chairman Alex Bogusky to seat them with the creative department. "A lot of the success of this [VW campaign] was only because we could experiment here with the creative and developers coming together," he says.

"It's what the people want" has certainly attracted consumer attention. At press time, there have been a total of 977,983 votes and 77,113 polls collected. Up to 500 poll questions run live at any one time.

"This is clearly innovative for an automotive brand," says Wes Brown, principal automotive analyst at Ideology, Westwood, Calif. "And that kind of technology -- for consumer sentiment, owner opinion -- is clearly the right way for VW to tap into it. "

The campaign, adds Brown, taps into a major cultural trend right now: showcasing user-generated content in ad campaigns.

"As we deal with the new generation of consumers -- Gen X and Gen Y and even younger boomers -- we're in the era of 'It's all about me and my opinion. I want to be involved in the brands I buy and engage them as they engage me. I want them to listen to what I have to say.'"



Tim Ellis, vp of marketing for Volkswagen of America, says he was instantly taken by the agency's "It's what the people want" positioning. "The line hit me immediately," he says. "As soon as I heard it, I knew it was going to be a winner."

Leveraging the history of the brand with the introduction of Max the 1964 Beetle, the campaign, which also includes TV spots starring celebrities like Heidi Klum and David Hasselhoff, launched with teaser ads that offered insights into human behavior culled from an initial polling effort by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media. Volkswagen incorporated those findings in early ads in the series, using results such as 62 percent of respondents believe people should not have to use their real names on social networking sites and 85 percent think that people should not be allowed to bring their pets to work. The second phase of the campaign introduced the interactive polling initiative to invite people to directly tell VW what they want.

"We really wanted people to engage and have some fun with it and also to provoke some thought," Ellis says. "The strong brand message is that VW understands people out there today and is therefore constantly working to give people what they want."

The interactive Times Square billboard also caught the attention of the media, including the hosts of The View, who spent about five minutes discussing the poll on the show.

"For us it's about participating in pop culture," says Ellis. "One of the things I was personally very intent on is crossing over from the interactive world into the real world. I want to create ideas that can naturally travel from one channel to another. ... It says something about the progressive nature of the brand in the way it speaks to the consumer."

So far, Ellis says the company is more than pleased with the results it is seeing from the effort. "I had high expectations, but I never thought we would get the response we did as a result of this polling," he says, noting the nearly 1 million votes received thus far.

The campaign has achieved its initial goal of creating talk value, and consumers are not only spending time on the polling site, but are also going onto the product pages to learn more about VW's cars. He points out that even without having any new products in the marketplace, the company has seen a "huge uptick" in test drives, an increase of 28 percent since the initiative began.

"That is a very concrete measurement of the campaign's success," he says. "We feel it is a highly successful program."



Early assessment of the campaign has convinced VW that consumer interest in the brand will increase as it rolls out new products such as the Tiguan compact SUV, which launches an ad effort this week, the Routan minivan and the CC four-door sedan.

"We have a huge goal of reaching 800,000 [unit sales] by the year 2018," says Ellis. "It is important to us to continue to leverage the coolness and the strong emotional appeal of the brand, but it is just as important to tell the story which feeds into why people will buy one car over the other."