Our idea was quite simple: let’s replace Volkswagen’s head of marketing. Why? For the music special editions a real music expert was needed: Robbie Williams. We made him retire from the stage and step into the Volkswagen marketing department in Wolfsburg, Germany. Here he just did things the Robbie way and as the new boss, changed pretty much everything: cars, colours, sound, equipment, factory procedures and he even learned German – well, kind of.

The campaign started with a big bang around the turn of the year 2014/2015. Via social media we started the buzz around Robbie Williams and his plans to quit his career for a proper job in Germany. After two weeks social media ablaze with wild guesses and assumptions with an enormous media coverage, Volkswagen revealed in a big press conference, shown simultaneously online and on all major TV stations. Here Robbie Williams was officially announced as the new head of marketing. From January until October 2015, people could follow the story on his new online platform. Everybody could now witness how Robbie would master his new job in different episodes, interviews and content the new marketing director produced himself.

By creating buzz via social media and combining various digital channels, the new marketing boss sold as many cars as nobody before. Due to an enormous level of sharing with over 86 million social media contacts and extensive media coverage, the campaign gathered earned media worth 40 million Euros. It resulted in 41 % more car configurations than previous year (objective: +10%) – a key result in measuring purchase intent online. All this was achieved with almost 50% lower media spendings.