VW Intros Its Bus Reboot, Dubbed the ID Buzz, With Slick OOH

Where can you catch a glimpse of the rebooted VW Bus? At a bus stop, of course!

The two-tone hippie-era fave—reimagined as the fully-electric ID Buzz—rolls today in slick OOH from agency Johannes Leonardo, placed mainly along bus routes and in transit shelters across NYC and L.A. (There’s a gala event in Huntington Beach, Calif., too.)

Taking a page from Apple’s stylistic roadmap, the work, both digital and static, feels clean, fresh, direct and shows off the EV to great advantage.

“We wanted to maximize impact for a launch this big—small mobile screens and the like wouldn’t cut it,” JL executive creative director Jonathan Santana tells Muse. “At this stage, it isn’t about details and RTBs, it’s about impact. In addition to that, we wanted to take over contextual ‘bus’ placements, playing off the relevance of the original Bus.”

“The Bus is famous for its iconic two-tone paint job, and as such, we wanted the advertising for its successor to be just as simple and ownable,” Santana says. “We also tapped into the classic VW optimistic and witty tone to get all of America excited by its impending arrival.”

And that would be in summer 2024. The original model ended production in the 1970s, though a somewhat similar Vanagon was sold through the early 2000s. (Vanagon? Sounds like a Simpsons’ spoof name!)

Of the ID Buzz, Santana adds: “This is a very important moment for the brand in the U.S., because its most beloved vehicle is now reincarnated and modernized as an EV.”

Most beloved? Not quite. The most beloved VW is the Beetle, which JL saw off four years ago with considerable style.