VW Beetle "Force of Good" campaign
Arnold Worldwide
Summer 2005

When the lovely people over at Arnold came to us with this bizarre idea, we rolled over with joy. Conceived to remind the viewer that the New Beetle is not only a car, but an intrinsically lovable character, the campaign is built upon the premise that the car is a “force of good”. This wonderfully absurd concept would pair up the Beetle and a foe in a stand-off. Then, without moving so much as a tire, the Beetle would destroy its enemy with kindness.

After this, one absurd idea is layered on top of the other. The foes would be a bunch of silly, everyday annoyances such as shrill alarm clocks and stinking Port-a-Potties. Then, instead of setting the battles somewhere in the real world, we’d see them happen in places ripped from genre movies like Westerns, Kung Fu and Gladiator flicks. To top it off, the sets wouldn’t look as real as possible, but more like theatrical sets or typically budget-challenged b-movie productions.

In order to tell the story using essentially inanimate objects, we took cinematic clues from the genre movies that are referenced: the sweeping, grand shots of “Ben Hur”, the snap zoom and freak editing of Hong Kong Kung Fu movies, and the stately, ominous low angles and dolly shots from Sergio Leone Westerns. We also inhabited the worlds with other characters, like the town drunk in the Western town, the flamboyant Roman Emperor or the Kung Fu Master barbecuing a chicken.

We shot the whole campaign over four long days on a stage in Los Angeles, helped by the extraordinary eye of Stephan Czapsky, the majestic sets by Robert Fox, and the haunting costumes by Jennifer Johnson.