Deep Fake

The Volkswagen Touareg is lauded for its great off-road performance, but perceived as a car for the over 40s. Coupled with VW’s Touareg distributor having a tiny dealership footprint in China, we needed to inspire people to actively ‘go and find a dealer’. While VW certainly enjoys high awareness in China, it is viewed as old and irrelevant amongst China’s youth.

So, PHD adopted an impactful strategy to force reappraisal by association with famous action movie star, Wu Jing, known for his stunts, explosions and frantic car chases. In a media first we tweaked entertainment app VUE’s proprietary AI face-swapping technology to let users put themselves in a high octane Wu Jing car chase, featuring the Touareg.

Well-placed premium ads and KOLs were used to amplify reach and attract more users’ attention.