Even a rival shop calls the Volkswagen's "Milky Wa

Even a rival shop calls the Volkswagen's "Milky Way" spot perfection.The commercial is perhaps the most lauded VW ad from five-year lead agency Arnold Worldwide in Boston. Shot over three nights near Bodega Bay in Northern California, the spot, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, features four young people driving in the open night air on their way to a party. They are enjoying the music on the radio, the starry sky and the radiant full moon. The group arrives at the bash but feels put off by the noisy, frenetic scene. They decide to continue driving their Cabrio and soaking in the evening."That's pretty close to being a perfect TV spot," says Mike Sheehan, co-president and chief creative officer of Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos, long Arnold's crosstown competitor. "It evokes feeling and emotion without ever saying a word."With a minimum of effort, the twentysomethings in the commercial end up having good time. Arnold needed extra effort to bring the commercial to fruition. "We were totally fogged in every night ... no moon, no stars," recalls Bill Goodell, Arnold svp/associate director of broadcast production, who serves as agency producer on dozens of VW spots each year. "We shot for three days. It was weeks in post-production to make that [spot] believable. We added the stars, the moon, the headlights of the car. We got the performances we needed from the actors." In the end, the added effects seemed to enhance the spot's ethereal, magical qualities. Of course, there's been plenty of magic through the years in Arnold's "Drivers Wanted" campaign for VW. The work has essentially reinvented the brand in the U.S. and has had three main creative executives at the helm: Goodell, Ron Lawner, chairman and CCO, and Alan Pafenbach, evp/group creative director and art director.The excellence continued in 2000 with numerous creative awards bestowed upon elements of the "Drivers Wanted" effort. TV, radio and print ads were honored, as were interactive executions and outdoor work. In addition to "Milky Way," there were plenty of memorable ads. For the Passat, a spot featured a suburban guy with a soap bucket and hose in a driveway, lovingly washing his neighbor's car. For the GTI, a commercial showed a driver carefully removing every last grain of sand from his sneakers before getting into his car. And of course, there was the Jetta owner who put a body block on an errant shopping cart to avoide a collision with his vehicle in a supermarket parking lot.Billboards continued to build on the playful personality of the New Beetle with eye-catching headlines, such as "Helloooo, rich hippies!" The vw.com/autoshow and turbonium.com Web sites, featuring futuristic graphics and a bevy of online functions for the autophile, proved especially compelling and favorites at awards presentations.Lawner calls working on the $280-300 million business "the chance of a lifetime to do great advertising for a great brand [that] could not have worked out better." Even so, he declines to paint the relationship as a utopia. "It's not easy to come up with great work five years in a row," he says.A year ago, copywriter and creative director Lance Jensen, long one of the key members of the VW team, left Arnold to form his own agency, Modernista!, with former Wieden + Kennedy creative director Gary Koepke. Pafenbach, who had partnered with Jensen on the account since the agency won it, was initially concerned about his suddenly ballooning workload, which includes overseeing nearly all facets of the campaign. Luckily, he says, "We have an extra-deep bench, and the next generation of creatives was able to step in."Some 30-40 creative and production staffers work on the account; all deserve credit for the campaign's enduring success, Pafenbach adds. Art directors Tim Vaccarino, Will Uronis and Don Shelford, along with writers Shane Hutton and Dana Satterwhite, produced much of the agency's work this year. Tim Brunelle, associate creative director, oversaw online efforts. What's next for "Drivers Wanted"? Lawner, Pafenbach and Goodell aren't anxious to tinker with a successful formula. The line won't change anytime soon, nor will the effort's gentle ironic tone and emphasis on the emotional connection between VW drivers and their cars.

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Even a rival shop calls the Volkswagen's "Milky Wa

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