Tag: Volkswagen Norway

Volkswagen Trailer Assist

The Trailer Assist feature allows Volkswagen cars to park semi-autonomously using the rear backup camera. To promote this feature in Norway, Volkswagen created a stunt where a driver appeared to back up his car and trailer at high speed through parking lots, roundabouts and intersections.

The film looks impossible on purpose. The “trailer” was built as a disguised driving rig, with a stunt driver inside. One-way transparent plexi glass (and film) kept visibility possible for the driver in the rig, while still selling the illusion from the outside.

What Trailer Assist is actually solving

Reversing with a trailer is where confidence collapses for many drivers. The steering feels counter-intuitive, small corrections compound fast, and stress makes it worse. Trailer Assist flips that experience by turning the job into a simpler “direction setting” task, while the system handles the tricky part of guiding the trailer’s path using the rear camera.

Why the stunt works as marketing

The creative idea is not “show the feature.” It is “make people stop and ask how this is possible.” The impossible-looking reverse drive earns attention first. Then the campaign points back to the real benefit. Making trailer reversing feel easier and more controllable in everyday situations like tight parking and awkward angles.

What to borrow for tech-feature storytelling

  • Start with a strong visual proof. If the benefit is hard to explain, make it easy to see.
  • Use exaggeration to earn attention, then anchor in reality. The stunt pulls people in. The feature explanation keeps it credible.
  • Pick a scenario your audience already fears. Trailer reversing is a universal stress test.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Volkswagen Trailer Assist?
A driver-assist feature that helps manoeuvre a trailer while reversing using the rear camera, reducing the counter-intuitive steering challenge.

What did Volkswagen do in Norway to promote it?
They staged a stunt that made it look like a Volkswagen reversed a trailer at very high speed through real-world driving situations.

How did they create the illusion?
A disguised trailer rig with a hidden stunt driver inside made the movement possible while keeping the “reverse drive” effect believable from the outside.

Why was plexi glass part of the setup?
One-way transparent plexi glass (and film) allowed the driver in the rig to see out while keeping the illusion intact for onlookers and camera angles.

What is the key takeaway for marketers?
When a feature is hard to appreciate in a static demo, create a single dramatic scenario that forces attention, then connect it back to the everyday value.

Volkswagen Norway: Test drive in a print ad

You open a magazine and see a long, empty road. Then you hover an iPhone over the printed page and a Volkswagen appears to “drive” along that road on your screen. It is a test drive that happens inside a print ad, with summer and winter road versions depending on the magazine insert.

Volkswagen Norway builds this as a hybrid print and mobile experience. Readers are prompted to download an app, developed by Mobiento, that turns the printed road into a track. The phone becomes the controller and the page becomes the environment. The payoff is simple viewer control. You move the phone. The car moves with you.

An augmented reality print ad is a piece of print that a camera can recognize as a trigger. Once recognized, an app overlays a digital layer onto the page, anchored to the printed design so the interaction feels connected to the physical medium.

The experience is designed to demo three features in a way print usually cannot. Lane assist, adaptive lights, and cruise control. It is not a real test drive, but it is a clear and surprisingly tactile explanation of systems that are otherwise hard to “feel” from a magazine spread.

Why this works as an explanation engine

Driver-assist features are abstract until you see them respond to a road situation. Here, the road is literally in your hands. The app turns a passive reading moment into a short simulation where the benefit is demonstrated rather than claimed.

What the campaign is really doing for the brand

This is a positioning move as much as a product demo. It says Volkswagen brings technology into everyday life and it does it with familiar media, not only with future-facing formats. Print becomes the doorway into a mobile experience, and that contrast makes both feel more interesting.

What to steal for your own print-to-mobile idea

  • Make the printed asset the interface. The road is not decoration. It is the input surface.
  • Choose features that benefit from simulation. Assist systems and “smart” behaviours are ideal for quick demos.
  • Keep the interaction one-step. Download, point, move. Anything more kills curiosity.
  • Provide two contexts. Summer and winter versions make the concept feel robust and replayable.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “test drive in a print ad” in simple terms?

It is a magazine ad that works with an iPhone app. When you hover the phone over the printed road, the app overlays a car on screen and lets you simulate driving along the page.

What features does the VW print-ad test drive demonstrate?

The experience is built around lane assist, adaptive lights, and cruise control, using the printed road as the scenario that triggers the system behaviours.

Why is this better than a normal print ad for tech features?

Because it shows behaviour, not descriptions. The viewer sees the system respond in a road context, which is more memorable than reading about it.

Is it accurate to call it the world’s first?

Volkswagen Norway bills it that way, and the work is widely described as an early example of augmented reality applied to print as a functional “test road”.

What is the main risk with print-to-app activations?

Friction. If install or recognition is slow, people stop. The first payoff has to arrive quickly so the novelty turns into understanding.