Catch the Unseen
Audi
Issue 39 | June 2016
Agency
Åkestam Holst
Creative Team
Creative Director Andreas Ullenius Art Directors Michal Sitkiewicz Eva Wallmark Copywriter Rickard Beskow
Production Team
Photo & Film C2 with photographer Petrus Olsson Web production More
Other Credits
Business Director Tom Hedström Producer Johan Eklund Account Managers Jennie Strinnhed & Mirja Hjelm Planner Jerker Winter Web Developer Kalle Peterz Motion Director Nisse Axman Motion Designer Eric Karlsson Graphic Designer Torbjörn Krantz
Date
Late 2015
Background
Åkestam Holst wanted to find a competition mechanic with which to launch the four-wheel-drive Audi Q7 Quattro in Sweden.
Photography was one answer, but most Instagram-based content consists of selfies and pictures of some millennial food blogger's breakfast. There's a stultifying uniformity.
Audi, which in Sweden is a challenger against the ubiquitous Volvo, wanted to change the game.
Idea
The idea was to create a different kind of photo competition, where the challenge was to take a picture furthest away from any other photo on Instagram. In other words, who could take a photo of the most remote place in Sweden? The only way to do this would be to explore the country's wildest and largely unpopulated extremities – for which purpose the Audi Q7 is ideally suited.
The competition was called Catch the Unseen. A customised algorithm allowed Audi to map all geo-tagged Instagram photos shot in Sweden.
When competitors shot a geo-tagged photo and uploaded it with the hashtag #CatchTheUnseen and @AudiSweden, the algorithm could calculate its distance from the nearest other photo.
Sweden's biggest Instagram photographers were invited to compete – with the photographer shooting the most remote picture winning an Audi Q7 Quattro.
The winner's photo was taken over 13 kilometres away from the nearest other shot.
Results
The campaign reached over 500,000 Instagram users.
Our Thoughts
Well, here's a potent combination. Sweden, Instagrammers and a four-wheel-drive Audi.
Sweden, apart from beautiful people all committing all kinds of evil crimes (Scandi noir, anyone?), is famous for its photogenic and remote mountains, lakes and forests.
Instagrammers are tech-savvy and pretty upscale, and probably see themselves as challengers. That suggests they match well with Audi's target clientele.
And if you're challenged to explore the remote parts of Sweden, a four-wheel drive Audi would do the job nicely.
Your average car competition is pretty dull really, and something usually jars – either the car, or the competitive mechanic. This has a three-part harmony, and uses some clever tech too.