The 2011 WRX STI is the most aggressive vehicle Subaru has ever created. However, strict Canadian advertising regulations prohibit automotive advertising from showing any of the hardcore drifts, speeding, and jumps our target has come to love and expect. So, rather than making a commercial about a car, we powered a commercial with one. No CG. No Greenscreen. Just the WRX STI passing 760 painstakingly made animation frames to create a real life flipbook story.

The original commercial launched on television during live sporting events. It then led people to the Subaru Canada YouTube Channel where they could see an Extended Version of the commercial as well as a six minute documentary chronicling how it was made. People were also led to our YouTube channel through a series of targeted rich banners which allowed people to actually power the animation using their mouse. Once the campaign had launched, we uploaded our “Choose Your Own Angle” interactive YouTube video, allowing people to experience the WRX STI rally race from four different angles in real time.

Within only weeks of the campaigns launch our films had over 300,000 views online and quickly became the #1 watched Automotive Video in Canada on YouTube. The campaign was featured on hundreds of blogs including Gizmodo, Trendhunter and Jalopnik, as well as in major newspapers across Canada. Our “Choose Your Own Angle” video immediately became an online sensation racking up over 200,000 unique views and picking up a slew of press along the way. Best of all, sales of the Subaru WRX STI were up over 126% over the same period the year before.