VDub

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This article is about the advertisements for the Volkswagen GTI. For the video editing
software, see VirtualDub. For the company whose vehicles are nicknamed VDubs,
see Volkswagen.

a MK5 Volkswagen GTI

VDub was an American advertising campaign used by Volkswagen during 2006 for

the Volkswagen GTI. Intended to parody MTV's Pimp My Ride, advertising
agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky created a series of three television commercials
directed by Jonas Åkerlund, starring Swedish actor Peter Stormare as an effete German
engineer named Wolfgang, and German model Sonja Wöstendiek as his assistant Miss
Helga. In each ad, Wolfgang introduces a "contestant" and Miss Helga showcases and
insults their gaudy and distastefully modified compact car of a competitive make -
specifically a Mitsubishi Eclipse, Ford Focus and a Honda Civic. Wolfgang then
excitedly announces that they are going to "unpimp" the contestant's car, in which he
presses a button on a handheld remote and the car is violently destroyed (such as
being crushed by a shipping container or smashed by a wrecking ball) as the contestant
watches. Each contestant is then given a brand new Volkswagen GTI, a car that has
been "pre-tuned by German engineers". Wolfgang uses gestures and expressions
reminiscent of hip-hop culture throughout the ads for humorous effect, such as when he
proclaims "we just dropped it like it's hot!" after crushing a Ford Focus. Most notably, he
opens every ad with "V Dub in the house!" and ends every ad by recreating the
Volkswagen logo in a hand sign accompanied with, "V Dub! Representing
Deutschland!"
The commercials began airing in late February 2006. Prior to the full launch of the TV
campaign, the three 30-second spots became an early example of a viral video when
popular automotive news website Leftlane News uploaded the ads to video distribution
service YouTube. The ads became an early example of an Internet meme, as other
YouTube users created their own parodies of the ads. By early March 2006, the ads
had received over two million views on YouTube. Three years later, that number was
over 10 million.
The ad campaign extended beyond the TV commercials. In one of the first examples of
a company using social media to reach prospective customers, Volkswagen created
a MySpace page for Miss Helga in which the character interacted with users. The
advertised website, volkswagenfeatures.com, featured interactive videos of Miss Helga
showcasing the car. The configurator on Volkswagen's website also allowed users to
 "test drive" their GTI around a test track while Miss Helga showcased the car's features
from the passenger seat.

See also[edit]
 Volkswagen advertising
 Changes
 Think Small
 Fahrvergnügen

External links[edit]
 Compilation of all three advertisements
 Leftlane News
 VW GTI homepage
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A marque of the Volkswagen Group

See also: Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles

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L1 Concept

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concept

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ncept

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Roadster (Nardò)

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 This page was last edited on 11 November 2020, at 23:18 (UTC).
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