Rule The Road
View the case- Brand
- Volkswagen
- Year
- 2017
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Automotive
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Social
- Agency
- Deutsch
Objective
Volkswagen wanted to launch the 2018 Tiguan in the US as a fun, status-worthy pick for city dwellers, and to push a 30-second TV campaign into a format young, mobile-first urbanites would actually engage with. The goal was to move them from watching the ads to acting inside the story, and to carry over the inflatable gorilla and driver from the "The New King" spot into something interactive.
Solution
Players land on the @VWRuleTheRoad Instagram account to find its whole grid arranged into one city block: streets, a construction site, a zoo, a coffee shop, and a cast of characters, built from individual photo and video tiles. Every day at 1pm ET a new tile drops with a riddle pointing to where the Tiguan is hidden that day, and players tap through the grid, swipe the carousels, and watch the Boomerangs and video clips playing out comic little scenes across the block. The Tiguan itself shows up disguised as a toy car, a stencil, a photo, or the real vehicle, mixed in among plenty of decoy cars. Once a player spots the right one, they screenshot it and DM it to the account — that submission is the whole move, earning a same-day prize and an entry into the grand-prize draw, with real people answering questions in the DMs. Anyone could jump in on any day, since no earlier tiles were required to keep playing.
- 1
Players discover the game through an Instagram in-feed ad and a TV spot featuring an inflatable gorilla, both pointing to a dedicated account, @VWRuleTheRoad. Opening the profile reveals that its grid of posts is not a normal feed but a single continuous map of a city, with tiles fitting together into streets and blocks.
- 2
Entry requires following the account, and official rules restrict participation to US residents aged 21 and over.
- 3
A new clue appears each day at exactly 1pm ET, added as a fresh tile that points to where a hidden Volkswagen Tiguan can be found in the city that day.
- 4
Following the clue, players tap into the corresponding neighborhood tile and swipe through its carousel, which mixes animation, live-action video and Boomerang loops staged as comic vignettes (a coffee-shop argument, a zoo, a construction site).
- 5
Within these scenes players search for the hidden Tiguan, which may appear as a toy, a stencil, a photograph or a real car; many vehicles populate each scene, but only one is the correct find.
- 6
Players screenshot the frame containing the Tiguan and submit it as an entry by sending it to the account's Instagram DM, where a live human operator responds and fields questions.
- 7
A correct find gives a chance at one of that day's 25 instant prizes, ranging from a $50 iTunes code to a $250 Sonos certificate, and also enters the player into a grand-prize drawing.
- 8
Players return daily for a new clue over a 21-day run that maps out the whole city tile by tile, and can join in on any day without needing to start from day one.
- 9
Entries close after October 5, 2017, and around October 12 a random drawing among all entries selects the grand-prize winner: a 10-day, 9-night trip for two across San Francisco, Miami and New York, valued at about $15,000.
