The Odd But True Story Behind The Greatest Car Ad Of All Time

Audi do some of the best car adverts - in this week's video I look at the strange story behind one of the best to be played in the UK.
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[@ollyis]

I realise I'm a little late to the party but I'd love to set the record straight. First up, I made this ad, thanks so much for your kind words and for dedicating a video to it. I worked at BBH almost 10 years ago and I was overjoyed to finally be given a brief for my first ever car ad. More so when I learned it was going to be for this beast. Previous R8 ads had been incredibly clever, high budget productions full of subtle metaphor and high art imagery and I imagined we'd soon be in the alps in the back of a tracking vehicle shooting the car racing towards us and having a whale of a time. The reality was quite disappointing. "It's just a print ad, we've already photographed the car, just write a clever headline, and don't spend more than half a day on it". The account had just been given to two new creative directors and my creative partner Tom and I went to them to plead our case. "What do we have to do to get a chance to shoot this car?" They said, if you can come up with an idea that shows this car in a different way, a way that has never been shot before then we'll push for a new shoot. We went back to the agency strategists to try and find a new angle, a product truth that we could hang an idea onto. They said, on the outside it's pretty much the same car, 'its more of an evolution rather than a revolution' (lightbulb moment!) all of the excitement is on the inside. If people get to hear it, they'll know. I was watching a lot of Dyno videos at the time, and Ioved seeing how these cars looked so powerful, straining against their restraints, spitting fire and sounding amazing. So that's where the idea came to be, lets show them the inside of the car, where the real excitement was happening. They signed off the stills shoot straight away, however I was showing my Dyno videos to anyone and everyone and quickly people agreed that we should strip down an R8 and put it on a dyno and do a cheap shoot, just to see how it looked. However we had no budget as it was a press ad after all. At the time BBH was an incredible place to make great work and enough people got behind the idea that we approached production companies and soon found one who was willing to make it at cost. So with a tiny budget and no media spend the ad got made and it made our hair stand on end, and the vibrations from the Dyno caused all of the recording hard drives to skip. It got up to 205mph (the dyno was only rated to 140mph) and there was a nervous Audi engineer with a laser thermometer and fire extinguisher close by at all times). We even got Audi to sign a disclaimer that if we destroyed the car, they were ok with it! The finished film might have gone nowhere if it wasn't for another glossy big budget Audi ad that got pulled. It was for the Q7 and featured a woman falling to the pavement as he heel broke. Strangely the hero driving the Q7 just speeds off. (it was a metaphor for something I can't remember but a lot of people including the British press thought it had some very questionable morals around rape culture so the ad was killed). Now there were millions of pounds worth of 60 second cinema spots booked and no ad to fill them. Step up our little dyno ad. It premiered in cinemas before Iron Man 3 (I think) and because the film featured an R8 it was the perfect pairing. People absolutely loved it. Now on to your point about what you can and can't show re; speed and enjoyment. The ad was very briefly banned and again BBH were heroic in fighting for it. Their legal team challenged it, citing that it was just a test and didn't glamorise speed at all. It helped that the driver was in shadow and we didn't see his beaming grin. But to cut a very long story short, it was never the brief to circumnavigate the rules around speed and fun, although we did talk about it being the perfect ad, in that it that it just so happened to avoid the rules in this way.

[@BAC_Mono]

Great story Olly, Hands down it’s one of the most visceral car ads ever, fantastic result. It’s so understated, the fact that you end up lusting after a car that isn’t even moving encapsulates both ‘Audi’ and ‘Supercar’. The rules about online advertising are very different are they? How was KIA able to create an advert for the EV6 GT based on a drag race?

[@markyj1]

Great overview Olly. It was a fantastice time to be working in advertising then. The only thing i would add is that i really wanted this film to capture the imagination of men, women, car nuts and non car fans alike. Dynos were always in videos looking rather grotty and nerdy and taking that worked and making it more conceptual, almost spiritual was how I felt we could make this more Audi and truly stand out. It was a super team and a very tiny budget as you said. Just goes to show that a good idea doesn't have to cost the earth.

[@tianweiyou2953]

Amazing story! What other ads have you made in your career?

[@terminatort2t800]

Brilliant

[@ericmin832]

It's so amazing to see the creator of my favorite commercial ever here on KZbin. You've probably heard it many times by now but your ad is by far the greatest I've seen for any product, really captures the raw enjoyment and aching love we all have for cars like the R8. It's pure emotion distilled into an incredibly effective ad without a single word spoken, and that's definitely an achievement much easier said than done.

[@junade007]

I liked the peugeot ad where it's in India he's shaping the car with a mallet and finally gets the elephant to sit on it to press the metal. All with a bhangra sound track

[@JayEmmOnCars]

That's a great ad too. For the 206

[@DanLMH]

Loved that ad when it came on, always turned it up LOUD. Plus V10 sound yasssssssss

[@JoeAchilles1]

My absolute favourite ad of all time, great video mate, what a ridiculous world we live in! All very interesting!

[@1finchgreen]

I think the best advert was actually the Audi RS3 one, in which the R8 is on the same dyno and gives birth to the RS3.

[@JayEmmOnCars]

That is a freaky advert

[@Dudemania3000]

No that advert was just wrong on so many levels!!

[@cs_044]

Mitch This and that advert are probably my favourites of all time.

[@YensR]

JayEmm at his best, great story!

[@Leamare]

Indeed, best ad of all time. I have this add saved on my favourites since then.

[@carlosanderson4479]

So really the brilliance of the Audi ad is what they did with the little freedom they had as far as what they could put in the ad in the UK. Very smart.

[@JayEmmOnCars]

Yep

[@madanto2394]

Made me smile that commercial

[@morgman43]

I always like those videos where you combine your knowledge of cars with your knowledge of filmmaking, of which television advertising is an offshoot. This was a great little commentary that covers both.

[@JayEmmOnCars]

Thanks! Glad you appreciate it

[@1183newman]

Imo the first gen r8 is the best looking R8

[@a.w.abbasi]

Agree!!

[@FiFaPrO97xXx]

It’s probably not the typical ‘car guy’ answer but I liked the Skoda Fabia cake advert haha!

[@peterthomas5792]

So 'vorsprung durch technik' applies not just to the cars, but the ads as well. Brilliant innovative work by the ad dept.

[@stevegrim9662]

This ad is gold indeed. I keep the original vid on a random 'car shit' playlist to go back and watch along with some other automotive gems.

[@XantoS771]

That's a great ad, but the original ad for the Audi R8 is still the best ad of all time...i'm talking about the "Slowest car we ever made" advert

[@MillywiggZ]

How do we get this ad past the censors. Any thoughts, Paul Atreides? “Travelling without moving”

[@justinpharand8454]

Love this Audi commercial, up there with the BMW M5 E39 Rocket commercial. Great video!

[@johngreenwood1972]

Great ad and a nice crisp explanation.

[@terminatort2t800]

Very interesting take on it, never knew. Brilliant ad, always watch it when I want to test new audio, TV or phone. 😁

[@morganbagert]

Don't forget that the jaguar had a fantastic advert which was banned with tom hiddleston saying its good to be bad. UK car adverts are tragic, we have audi quattro in a swimming pool, Nissan quashqais doing fake stupid flips on a ramp. audi q8 interrupting a orchestra just a mess. PC bull shit. But That audi r8 ad was fantastic.

[@robertrishel3685]

The UK has lost the plot 😢

[@cs_044]

Robert Rishel Certainly - Since insuring a 1.4L 80BHP 4-Pot Fiesta (2002) costs £120 a month.

[@AutoSugar]

Fantastic vid! Great story!

[@chrisroberts1440]

The TTS dropping from space was pretty good too, I'm guessing that was allowed because it was falling not being driven.

[@jbenekeorr]

Loved this video!

[@angrydwarf6563]

Brilliant insight. Nice on James

[@JayEmmOnCars]

Cheers

[@johnny-S]

Fascinating video, really enjoyed it. An essence of Mr Clarkson in there somewhere too.

[@ahrred3127]

That Audi Ad Satisfy Me BTW Nice Video Mate!

[@dj_paultuk7052]

Being an Ex SAAB technician im also going to say the old SAAB ones were really good. The one where the classic 900T16S races up a track on the side of a moutain. Gets to the top and a Jet fighter shoots off the end. Or the one where a Saab 9000 2.3T Aero races a Fighter jet off the line on a runway, equally very good.

[@markguppy2715]

Just from reading the title of this vid I was hoping you were referring to this ad. I'm not at all a fan of Audis but it has to rate as one of the all time great ads. It's the only ad I've ever deliberately watched more than once. That V10 is a symphony. Now I'll continue watching your take on it.

[@Slothdeman]

You should review the MG 2001 advert (High fat, maximum strength) That was also banned....

[@jamesengland7461]

That was poetry!

[@beagle7622]

I agree 100 percent. That exhaust wow .

[@darrenporter1850]

Never knew this. Good info.

[@thedetailingdoctor5746]

Honda and their car parts that made like a rolling domino effect

[@bikerchrisukk]

That was interesting, cheers 👍

[@tooboschbosch]

nice KEF Speakers in the background!!!

[@darrellcoutinho805]

I wonder if VAG produced a TV ad with their diesels being tested on a dyno? 🤔😁

[@petejones6030]

Haha, love it. You see that’s why we built a microsite to launch the VX 220 turbo. That way we could break all the rules you mentioned AND sell every car Lotus built. Just search VX 220 turbo launch film , I’m sure it’s still here on YT somewhere.

[@JangosGaragebrokendreams]

This is why KZbin works so well for car reviews

[@samueldowney2806]

Bit late to this one but I just had to comment. I think you're missing an important point JayEmm by branding the advertising rules silly, orwelian, or similar. The fact is that you cannot do any of those things irl on the road within the law anyway, so advertising those things would be selling a lie. Which shouldn't be allowed! Advertising is bad enough as it is without being allowed to brainwash you into spending money on something you cannot even use as shown. The actual problem is that fun isn't allowed by law, on the road. And as a sad as that is, that's because most people cannot be relied on to have fun without also endangering others. Which is a real shame. Also, the Honda boiling the kettle is my personal fav car ad. But yeah, this is a close second!

[@SafffOneee]

That's a good point that you can't speed on public roads etc & if the ban was just on showing cars speeding in public roads that wouldn't be as bad as the ban as it is. It's really narrowminded thinking from the gov't that people buy fast cars only to speed on public roads where the reality is people who can afford sports cars in the price range of those shown in this vid are buying them to enjoy but are not going to risk getting fined or worse for breaking the law when they can afford to regularly or atleast every so often go to track days where they can drive fast in a safe & legal way, so the ban should not extend to anything to do with the racetrack. Or unfortunately some will buy them just as status symbols but they're not exactly gonna rag around their garage queen are they

[@pizza2437]

Actually quite a clever way around the fucking awful UK ad regulations.

[@Brickhazard]

Honda Accord, Peugeot 406 and 405. Maybe not anymore but the french were the masters at car adverts.

[@gabrielcaramet3238]

I adore the one audi made go home

[@chappardababbar]

Do you think you could upload the audio to a podcast?

[@BringIt96]

I remember when the Ford Mustang (and fiesta?) Advert were banned because the car drove quickly through a street 😂 utterly ridiculous. Great loophole found by audi and tbh nothing else is needed for the R8

[@pitbox6497]

I think a Jaguar ad was banned a few years back for driving too quickly in a car park... 🤦‍♂️

[@Cheesep321]

I thought you'd be referring to the advert where the R8 gives birth to the RS3!

[@JayEmmOnCars]

That one is just weird

[@comeberza]

banning ads because they show people having fun, and we still think the governments, politicians and the bureaucracy is in our side

[@Jack-qn4vt]

Just checking to see you know about that ad called Honda - The Cog, to me that's the greatest car ad.

[@Punisher9419]

The best one is the one where they build a car from cake.

[@redyellowpink01]

Skoda fabia i think? I liked the bit where they lifted the jelly tail lamp into place

[@KownKR7]

i thought the peugeot fire ad was the greatest car ad of all time

[@aaa84gt]

Any link I can watch? I’m curious

[@KownKR7]

@@aaa84gt kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmmqeZyPa8-giJo

[@JohnLeenon]

They are genius, and UK laws are crazy 😂😂

[@JasonMilner]

Aaaand now I want an R8 again.

[@ThePerson444]

VW oil filter housing nightmares

[@Techathy]

So the question is how come I get to see Lotus drifting in KZbin adds?... Not that I'm complaining.

[@JayEmmOnCars]

It's a *very* dodgy legal grey area because YT is a global platform

[@global_nomad.]

because this is about terrestrial/uk broadcast tv/cinema ads rather than online content.

[@Eksistenssi]

Awesome little video. Bureaucracy can kiss R8 ass

[@jamiemorris5177]

That’s why bmw made the hire short films Got a round all the 💩

[@signdeals4972]

Government mind control sucks

[@Fc-cb3tn]

For christ sake, can the broadcasting authority just give us a damn break? When you sell a supercar, you should try to convince people with speed, noise and drama, not with tosh like easy finance or fuel economy. Now every ad is like the rubbish noughties Peugeot ads.

[@ArnoSchmidt70]

Are you sure these add restrictions are allowed under EU law?...... oh wait.

[@polopowered]

The Guiness advert with the horses is one of the best adverts ever. This is just an arse end of a crappy Audi.

[@jondobbs]

1st

[@classiccarfinder]

Where is the celica. No offense but not interested in the legalities of adverts and i suspect most of your uk followers no this already.

[@JayEmmOnCars]

There will be a Celica video in about a month, I am away so haven't done much with it

[@classiccarfinder]

Good man thanks