大众汽车的迷你达斯·维德广告:屏幕背后

A clever pop culture reference and a heartwarming moment: That’s what it took to win the Super Bowl.

当然, 我们说的是超级碗广告比赛, 超级碗周日的另一场比赛. The Super Bowl is the one time all year when people want to watch TV commercials. Consequently, ad agencies plan for months to unveil something special that day.

Despite all the crude humor and surprise celebrity appearances in Super Bowl spots, 今年的冠军两样都没有. It had a young boy in a Darth Vader costume and a small moment with his father (and a Volkswagen Passat).

同样的因素使这个地方(正式名称为“原力”),” but known to most viewers as “Mini-Darth”) a Super Bowl hit also made it a runaway viral success online. 它的在线观看人数已超过3000万, 撰写本文时, 这则广告似乎注定要成为标志性的广告. 这则广告是如何走红的, 一开始是怎么凑到一起的, and how Volkswagen and Deutsch Los Angeles (the agency behind the ad) won the day.

大众视频病毒式传播的成功

“我们知道我们有一些特别的东西, 但几周内的点击量还不到3000万,迈克尔·卡丁说, 他是Deutsch的执行副总裁兼集团创意总监.

卡丁和埃里克·斯普林格, 同时也是Deutsch的执行副总裁和集团创意总监, were the two people responsible for shepherding the ad from concept to finished commercial.

《百家乐软件》的成功实际上并不是在周日的超级碗上开始的. The public got an early glimpse of the ad starting the Wednesday prior thanks to a strategy called “seeding.” If you’ve ever wondered why all the good commercials are available for online viewing days before the big game, 这就是原因.

播种并不总是受欢迎的. Many viewers enjoy the thrill of seeing the new commercials during the Super Bowl, and they don’t like that the surprise is being taken away with advanced viewing. For advertisers, though, it’s a way to get extra views for a spot and build up a little excitement.

At Deutsch, people were split on whether or not to seed the “Mini-Darth” spot.

“对此有很多讨论，”斯普林格承认. Some on the team wanted to “keep the genie in the bottle” and surprise game-day viewers. 超级碗本身就有1.1亿的广告观看量, 所以播种通常只会带来一点点的收益. In the end, Deutsch decided to seed the ad, hoping for 1 million impressions online.

“我们有一个伟大的团队，可以正确地播种, and then you hope that the creative is at a high enough mark where those seeds grow into mighty oaks,斯普林格说。.

Seeding doesn’t just mean dumping an ad onto YouTube and hoping for a payday. No, it means carefully choosing the right influencers who will help shape the opinions of online viewers. The “Mini-Darth” ad was seeded to auto sites, popular culture sites, and even Star Wars sites. 德国团队很好地选择了他们的意见领袖.

“如果他们不喜欢它，它就不会移动，”斯普林格说. “如果他们喜欢的话, it’ll move a little bit; and if they love it, 它会像快速燃烧的火焰一样穿过好莱坞山.”

播种的回报超出了多伊奇所有人的想象. 到周三结束时，这段视频的浏览量已经达到100万.

“I spent most of my day on the Thursday and Friday before the Super Bowl chatting with our clients, trying to make bets [on] what was going to be the number of views online at 3:15 before the Super Bowl,斯普林格说。. 他和卡丁赢得了超过1700万的猜测. 正确的数字是1800万.

与卢卡斯影业合作

“从一开始你就能感觉到有一些特别的东西,卡丁谈到这则广告的最初概念时说.

这个概念是由David Povill提出的, a senior copywriter; Ryan McLaughlin, a senior art director; and Craig Melchiano, 艺术总监. 从一开始，它就脱颖而出.

“我们第一次看到它时就爱上了它. We took it from a much smaller idea into basically what you saw on TV: a much larger story arc and a much more detailed, 有趣的故事,斯普林格说。.

因为拍摄这个故事需要卢卡斯影业有限公司.’s approval, the ad team approached Lucasfilm before showing the idea to the client.

“和他们一起工作令人难以置信地愉快，”斯普林格说. 《百家乐软件app最新版下载》和《百家乐软件》的老观众都知道, 卢卡斯影业似乎很乐意认可自己在流行文化中的角色. 它给了这个广告祝福.

对广告公司来说，策划超级碗广告是一件严肃的事情. 幸运的是Deutsch, 该公司去年还为大众制作了一个超级碗广告, the car maker doesn’t want generic shots of cars gliding through rolling hills. 它更喜欢微小的、人性化的时刻.

The Deutsch team held weekly meetings to prepare for the Super Bowl and looked at hundreds of scripts. “迷你达斯”的想法从一开始就闪耀着光芒, and it was presented with other ideas to Volkswagen executives several times. 这个概念不断胜出，所以它被选为这个重要的日子.

“每次我展示它, whether it was to the [Volkswagen] executives in Herndon or the Volkswagen executives in Germany, no matter who I presented it to—even my neighbors—that was the one that everybody laughed [at], 每个人都认为, “那不是很好吗,’”斯普林格说.

一旦德国车队得到了赞助商的支持, they approached directors to find the one that could best share the vision of the spot.

“每个一线导演都排着队来拍摄这个创意, 因为这个主意太棒了,卡丁说。.

 The Deutsch team selected Lance Acord and presented his reel to the Volkswagen execs to get their support. 一次解决, 这个团队制定了预算, 每个镜头的故事板, 召开制作前期会议, 并向客户展示了他们的集体愿景.

One crucial step was casting just the right child for the role of mini-Darth. 该机构调查了3至9岁的儿童. Since the child was fully covered, it didn’t matter if they cast a boy or a girl. Springer knew that the smaller the child, the more endearing the commercial would be. In the end, they cast 6-year-old Max Page, a young actor with theater experience.

“他知道自己有多迷人，”斯普林格说. 由于他的表演经验，佩奇导演得很好. 他对绝望的模仿是广告打动这么多人的一个重要原因.

“The emotion we’re trying to get from the ad is something you can relate to, 然后我们就试着用这个小孩把人们迷得神魂颠倒,斯普林格说。.

After the shoot, the footage was edited and re-edited, and the sound was fine-tuned. 这一切都需要共同努力来创造一个简单的人类真理, 大众广告背后的创意是什么.

多伊奇对自己暂时离开的决定感到满意, 因为它帮助广告在周日的超级碗比赛中从嘈杂的人群中脱颖而出. “If everyone’s going this way, we really wanted to go the other way,卡丁说。.

For Kadin, the appeal of the ad comes down to the bond between parent and child. “所有的父母都希望与孩子建立这样的关系. 我有两个女儿, 4和6, and I want that and all parents want that: They want to feel like they can have that effect on their children of being so engaged in their children’s [lives],他说.

德国和大众的下一步是什么?

《百家乐软件》不会有续集广告,够可悲的, 但大众汽车也会有类似的广告. 至于“迷你达斯”,” it will likely live on as one of the rare commercials that touch the heart, 例如可口可乐公司.经典的“我想给全世界买杯可乐”广告.

Springer says that he knew the ad was an iconic success when he saw it referenced in two political cartoons.

“我认为这是一个地方，在10年左右的时间里，它会一直存在. 这里面有一种人性的东西，”卡丁说. “其他事情几乎在超级碗结束后就结束了, 因为有一种明显的意图是引人注目和娱乐. 很多时候，这是以牺牲一个好主意为代价的.”

虽然这些大赛的获胜者没有超级碗戒指, 病毒式传播成功背后的团队将获得某种额外补偿.

“我们没有帕萨特, 但是会有一些奖金或者其他的东西,斯普林格说。, 指出多伊奇擅长“奖励惊人的行为”.”

Their challenge now is to capture the same appeal that “Mini-Darth” did in new ads. 也许这种魔力也会激励其他广告公司. Imagine if all the commercials during the 2012 Super Bowl focused on small, touching moments. 这是一场竞赛.