Quattro Experience
- Brand
- Audi
- Year
- 2012
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Racing & Sports
- Platform
- Installation
- Agency
- Thinkingbox
Objective
Audi set out to reinvent the test-drive itself for the 2013 A4, since the traditional format had seen almost no innovation in decades. The brand needed a way to reach Toronto's financial-district buyers — a rational, demanding audience drawn to distinctive, personalized experiences — while reinforcing Audi's reputation for innovation and precision craft ahead of the next phase of the campaign.
Solution
Passers-by in downtown Toronto come across a 140-square-foot racetrack built into a street-level window, dressed up with a miniature Audi dealership, billboards, and snow-capped mountain passes. They pick up an iPad, which streams a live first-person feed from a camera hidden inside their 1:32-scale Audi A4 quattro slot car, hit the on-screen throttle, and race up to three other drivers at once around hairpins and straightaways. Each lap is clocked automatically and posted to a live leaderboard on-site and online; several HD cameras capture the run, and drivers walk away with footage of their own race to post straight to Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube. The fastest lap over the two weeks wins a real Audi Driving Experience, including a lap in an Audi R8 on an actual track. Anyone outside Toronto can watch the races on a livestream through the campaign microsite, track the leaderboard, and browse the new A4 alongside it.
Results
Over two weeks, 3,932 people got behind the wheel, a 4,525% increase over the average number of test-drives a top dealer would expect in the same period, generating more than 800,000 experience impressions. The companion documentary drew nearly 185,000 views and 2,775,000 minutes of time spent with the brand. The campaign earned an estimated 4,671,156 earned-media impressions, drove a 209% increase in Facebook fans within four weeks of launch, and contributed to a 30% increase in sales for September–December 2012 versus the same period in 2011.
- 1
The installation sits in a public plaza, where passersby see an open hand-built slot-car track with hairpin turns, long straights, and icy mountain-pass sections; each participant is handed a detailed 1:32-scale Audi A4 quattro model car, with up to three cars racing the track at once.
- 2
Instead of a standard trigger controller, each player uses an iPad running the race app, which streams live first-person video from a miniature camera mounted inside their car rather than showing a track map.
- 3
Steering is automatic since the car stays in its track groove; the player's only input is a throttle control on the iPad screen, timing acceleration and braking into each hairpin.
- 4
The core loop is a timed lap race: the player pushes their car around the full circuit — hairpins, straights, icy passes — competing against the other cars on track for the best lap time.
- 5
Track-side cameras, including multiple HD cameras and an overhead shot, capture the race and display it on surrounding screens as a multi-camera broadcast with a running position ticker, letting bystanders watch the competition live.
- 6
Each completed lap time posts to a live leaderboard shown both at the installation and online, so the player immediately sees how their run ranks against everyone else who has played.
- 7
After the race, players can log in to claim a recording of their drive and download or share it directly to Facebook or Twitter.
- 8
The fastest lap times compete for a real-world prize: an Audi Driving Experience package that includes a lap on an actual racetrack in an Audi R8.
- 9
Players outside the venue can follow along on the campaign's microsite, which carries a live stream of the track, the same leaderboard, and background on the installation and the new A4.
