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2014 · Creative / Copywriter · DDB London
Volkswagen has a feature called BlueMotion Start-Stop, which cuts the engine when the car is stationary to save fuel. It's a useful feature, but explaining technical eco-tech in a TV commercial is usually pretty dry.
Instead of relying on a voiceover or diagrams, we used a simple visual metaphor: conserving energy only when you don't need it. The spot shows high-energy mechanisms—like a wind-up toy—pausing the exact second they aren't in motion. It was a straightforward, quiet way to make a technical feature feel human and easy to grab.
Recognition. Cannes Lions: Shortlist / Winner. D&AD: In Book.
Automotive · Film
Volkswagen's BlueMotion Start-Stop cuts the engine when the car is stationary in order to save fuel. Useful, undramatic, and notoriously dry to explain on television. Toby Brewer wrote the film as a Creative / Copywriter at DDB London with Nikki Lindman, under ECD Jeremy Craigen.
Eco technology is usually communicated with voiceover and diagrams, which asks the audience to process information rather than feel something. The behaviour itself, conserving energy only when it is not needed, is intuitive enough to be shown instead of described.
Produced through Outsider, the spot builds a series of high-energy mechanisms, including a wind-up toy, and pauses each one the instant it stops moving. There is no explanation and no technical language, just a visual metaphor executed cleanly enough that the feature explains itself. The film was shortlisted and awarded at Cannes Lions and went In Book at D&AD.