Volkswagen Finds a Better Use for Electricity in Movie Spoofs for ITV

Lights! Camera! Alas, no action.

The plots of adam&eveDDB’s broadcast idents for Volkswagen—marking the renewal of the nameplate’s sponsorship of movies on ITV in the U.K.—feel eerily, entropically similar.

And that’s by design. The :15s in VW’s “Electrifying Movies” campaign seek to drive awareness of the automaker’s latest electric and hybrid vehicles. They do so by presenting climactic moments from familiar cinema fare—with a twist that brings each scenario to a grinding halt.

For example, the cast of this Jurassic World-style spoof can safely view a giant monster caged behind a mega-volt fence, until a VW owner comes along …

… and unplugs the power supply to charge his car. (Only Miro’s digital whiteboard can save them now!)

It’s a cute joke, well deployed above and in these sendups of cop films, Franenkstein and superhero fare:

That last one looks like an apocalypse/Marvel hybrid? And kinky to boot! All in all, Rattling Stick directors Jamie Cussen and Will Beauchamp (aka, Aircastle) deliver quick yuks in pleasingly campy style.

Here’s a supercut with extra footage that will fuel more than a dozen idents rolling out through 2023:

“Volkswagen has a long-standing relationship with film, so it’s been great to extend that further with our latest work as part of our partnership with ITV,” says Sarah Cox, head of marketing at VW U.K.

The new push follows 2019’s “Movie Star Confidence,” which also skewered tropes from the silver screen.

CREDITS

Client: Volkswagen UK 
Brand: Volkswagen Electric Range 
Project/Campaign name: Electrifying Movies 
Client: Sarah Cox (Head of Marketing), Glyn Butterworth (National Communications Manager) & Rhidian Taylor (EV Communications Manager) 
Chief Creative Officer: Richard Brim
Executive Creative Director/s: Ant Nelson & Mike Sutherland 
Creative Director/s: Ted Heath & Paul Angus 
Copywriter: Ted Heath
Art director: Paul Angus
Agency producer/s: Jessica Middleton & Charlotte Ellison 
Planner/s: Sarah Morning 
CEO: Tammy Einav
Managing Partner: Michael McConville 
Business Director/s: Steven Halliday
Account Manager/s: Lily Barber 
Designer/Typographer: King Henry 
Media agency: PHD 
Media planner/s: Alban Treglohan, Lauren Hertzenberg & Tom Rovery
Production company: Rattling Stick 
Producer: Stuart Bentham
Production Manager: Katy Smith
Director: Aircastle [Jamie Cussen & Will Beauchamp]
Cinematographer: 
D.O.P: Ekkehart Pollack
Service Company: Tuna+Icon
Executive Producer: Johnnie Frankel 
Editing Company: Assembly Rooms
Edit Producer: Daniel Breheny
Editor: Eve Ashwell 
VFX Studio: Untold Studios
ECD: David Fleet
VFX EP: Ian Berry
VFX Producer: George Reid
VFX Supervisor: Christian Barker
VFX Supervisor: Martino Madeddu
Colourist: Julien Alary
Music Supervisor: Wave
Audio Post Production: Wave
Audio Producer: Beth Tomblin
Sound Engineer: Parv 
Soundtrack name and composer: audio network