“Tutorial”on how to hang a Jetta, from Red Urban and Volkswagen Canada

Red Urban and Volkswagen Canada made a commercial promoting the affordability of Jetta model.

The spot was developed by Toronto-based agency Red Urban and directed by Untitled Films’ Jean-Michel Ravon and is an extension of a campaign launched late last year in the UK.

Since the impulse buy is familiar to most shoppers, communicating the brand’s message was easy. Executing the creative idea, however, was much trickier. Key to the spot’s believability was finding a location where two cars – at roughly 3,000 pounds apiece – could be hung from the wall or ceiling. Since Volkswagen Canada’s spots avoid using computer graphics as a way to reinforce Volkswagen’s authentic style, a very large space was needed.

Choosing a location was tricky because we wanted the atmosphere to feel intimate, but the size of the vehicles ruled out small shop settings

Christina Yu

Executive Creative Director Red Urban.

The stables of a downtown Toronto historical castle, Casa Loma, were eventually discovered and booked for the shoot. The stables provided a quaint space with high ceilings and authentic style details, like the subway-tiled walls so common in traditional food markets, which were a perfect backdrop for the concept of the shoot. The next obstacle the team needed to overcome was hanging a hefty car from the ceiling in a way that looked seamless and believable.

The big challenge was to hang the cars so that they would sway a little (…) To accomplish the stunt, we removed the engine, transmission and fluids from both vehicles to reduce the overall weight. A European trailer hook part was installed and reinforced before employing a custom rig solution to hoist the cars up inside the Casa Loma stables.

Christina Yu

Credits:

Creative Agency: Red Urban

ECD: Christina Yu

AD: Liam Johnstone

CW: Sarah DiDomenico

Broadcast Producer: Anna Tricinci

Integrated Producer: Terri Vesgo

Account Directors: Caroline Kilgour, Sonia Ruckemann

Production Company: Untitled Films

Director: Jean-Michel Ravon

Executive Producer: Lexy Kavluk

Line Producer: Tom Evelyn

DP: John Houtman

Production Designer: Michael Walker

Editorial Company: Rooster Post

Editor: Paul Jutras

Post Production: Track and Field

Online Compositor: Ernie Mordak

Music and Sound Design: The Eggplant

Music Producer: Adam Damelin