The Most Effective Car Ad Ever: Passion Pays for VW

Make creative your competitive edge; unlock insights and inspiration from 100,000+ ads, rooted in emotional response, to predict and improve your creative’s business impact. Access every Ad Of The Week in our Topical Ads categories.

VW’s Golf GTI is 50 this year, and they’ve given us all a present: the most effective car ad we’ve ever tested. “50 Years Of Pure Passion”, from agency Bernbach, makes System1 history as the first automotive ad to get our maximum 5.9-Star Rating on Test Your Ad. It gets there with an ad that’s an executional masterclass and an emotional triumph. It mixes nostalgic joy, glimpses of the future and a celebration of the lives of the people who’ve made Golf GTI cars part of their lives.

The ad starts with 70s home video footage of a little girl thrilled as her Dad drives home one of the first ever Golf GTIs, and then we’re off on a 50 year trip through the lives of GTI owners and the cars they drive. The ad shows massive moments and small joys, from weddings to road trips with friends or family, and ends where it began with another moment of discovery, this time of the new GTI Edition 50. It’s an upbeat, emotional and passionate ad that has the product front and centre but its customers at its heart.

Maybe that nostalgia factor and the ad’s positive energy would have been enough to hit a maximum 5.9-Star Rating by themselves. (It’s a top percentile ad in its category for short-term Spike Rating too, if you were wondering). But VW and Bernbach haven’t just made a trip down memory lane. They’ve taken care over every single element of the ad. “50 Years Of Pure Passion” is a testament not just to the role of emotion in advertising but to the central importance of craft.

Take the soundtrack. Candi Staton’s “You Got The Love” is a brilliant emotional fit for the vibe of the ad. But like the GTI itself, it first hit the streets in 1976 and has been constantly remixed and updated ever since, becoming a classic alongside the car. We get to hear the original and a newer version in the ad, just at the moment when the in-car stereo switches from cassettes to CDs. Yes, the ad is also a loving trip down memory lane for anyone who remembers the old designs, fittings and features GTIs used to have, with a ton of period detail to take in over repeat viewings.

That care extends to the texture of the ad. This ad isn’t just about our memories, it’s about how we’ve made those memories last, with technology from shaky cine-cameras through instant snaps, camcorder and mobile footage and coming right up to date with vertical video. We’ve not just lived the last 50 years alongside the GTI, we’ve been finding new ways to capture and share those lives too.

That gives the ad a powerfully authentic feel which sets it apart from the many other commercials which trade in nostalgia. The extraordinary level of craft here works to boost the happiness and surprise the ad creates through its everyday stories and magic moments. It feels like a real celebration of VW customers’ lives, not just a look back at the cars they drove.

A 5.9-Star automotive ad has been a long time coming. Car ads have got a reputation for being generic, play-safe pieces of work: it’s no coincidence that the first ever AI-written ad we tested

was for a car. But the best car commercials have always tried to move away from staid category conventions. The previous category champion, Skoda’s delightful “Cake”, is a case in point, and VW themselves scored a previous 5-Star success with their wickedly funny “Laughing Horses”. Now “50 Years Of Pure Passion” has beaten them all, with an ad that elevates the category by putting humans first.