Car companies are urging you to stay indoors with these creative campaigns

With the Covid-19 pandemic spreading across the world, the message has been the same everywhere — stay at home. The virus is highly contagious and staying away from other people is the best way of slowing down its spread, limiting the number of people affected and preventing it from overwhelming each country’s healthcare system. Governments and medical professionals have appealed to people to stay home and practice ‘social distancing’, but they aren’t they only ones doing so. Car companies across the world are, very creatively, appealing to their fans to stay off the roads and stay at home. Here are some of the most creative ads from our favourite manufacturers:

Audi India posted a video to its Instagram page on March 18, and it is a very minimalist but very effective communication. The four-rings in the Audi logo that normally overlap separate, with the message ‘Keep Distance’, and then they come back together to the message ‘Stay together’. I like that Audi has leveraged its logo creatively in the communication, and ended up with a short, impactful video.

Where the Audi campaign focuses on only its logo, the Mercedes-Benz one has real-life visuals. A GLK SUV is parked in front of a house, followed by the caption —“Another Mercedes that stands for safety”, with a focus on the word ‘stands’. Clever pun here, implying that the brand stands for safety and the best way to do that is by leaving the car standing in your driveway. It goes on to show appreciation to everyone out there who is ensuring essential services remain uninterrupted, as well as to everyone else who is helping resolve the crisis by staying indoors.

Jaguar’s campaign, much like Audi’s cleverly plays with the Jaguar logo to pass on a positive message. The pouncing Jaguar, that normally faces left is flipped over to face right, along with the message “Stay safe, be kind, look forward”. There’s some clever subliminal messaging here too. When the logo flips to “look forward”, the colour of the background changes from black to a light blue. This light blue is used extensively in Jaguar’s communication about the iPace electric car, and is also the colour used on its Formula E car livery. So where the look forward also implies look ahead towards better times, they are hinting at a future with EVs as well.

Easily on of my favourite campaigns out there right now has to be from BMW. It starts with a bird’s eye view of a hairpin bend, and most ads that start like these eventually have some car thrashing up there. The anticipation builds with the first caption saying “The only curve that matters” and then, it leads in to one saying “is the one we need to flatten”. BMW is talking about the graph of Covid-19 outbreaks. The steeper the graph, the more overwhelmed the healthcare system will be. Flattening the curve means spreading out the infections over a longer period of time, so that at its peak, fewer people are infected and everyone gets access to the best possible medical facilities.

FCA, and more specifically Fiat, is at the epicentre of the European outbreak in Italy. Unlike the campaigns before, Fiat hasn’t made a witty video but a more heartfelt one. With visuals of the empty Italian streets, the video talks about the distress the Italians are facing, and have faced in the past and puts out a message saying that they are all in this together, and will come out stronger. You can immediately tell that this message is more sombre, and this is probably because Italy is in such an advanced stage of the outbreak already and now all they can do is pick up the pieces.

The coronavirus outbreak is serious, and these brands are trying to spread the right message about what needs to be done to tackle it. Some with wit and humour to keep our spirits up, and some with the seriousness that this pandemic deserves. We at evo India, would like to wish you the same — stay home, stay safe.