We wanted to show the challenge and obstacles big cities present to drivers and how a smart can overcome these. So we took a simple metaphor to demonstrate this fact – threading a needle. Everybody knows how difficult this is to do – just like driving a big car through a busy city. But in a Smart its easy, because a Smart can thread its way effortlessly and easily through London, Berlin, Paris… by finding the gaps other cars can’t. Part of the city, but never held back by it.

To powerfully communicate our message, we needed to convey the character and charm of the smart: together with the life, character and craziness of the big city. The city is represented by the needle. So we needed to capture the essence of it by using as our subjects, three leading European cities – for our cosmopolitan European audience. To do this we chose a hand-drawn line illustration style, to bring the cities to life in a cartoon-like way. Using iconic features and landmarks of each city, together with more generic urban elements, such as streets, cars, people, birds and planes we created chaotic, unique and instantly recognisable urban scenes. The thread going through the needle was then the road. The Smart itself is on this road, heading onwards in the far distance, having easily weaved through all the obstacles the city can throw at it.

As this campaign only started to run recently, we do not have any statistics with which to measure its success. It continues to add value to the brand by reinforcing the position of smart, in a simple, powerful and charming manner, as the easiest way to drive in evermore congested city traffic. This, in turn, helps consumers warm even more to the brand, as one that understands their urban lifestyles, increasing purchase consideration.