AUDI BRINGS BACK R8 EXCITEMENT AS BRAND RETURNS TO SUPER BOWL ADVERTISING

February 5, 2016 by Audi

• Audi is back as a Super Bowl advertiser after sitting out last year, and the brand's 60-second first-quarter ad titled 'The Commander,' is receiving critical acclaim.

February 05, 2016 | HERNDON, Virginia -- In the spot, a retired astronaut rediscovers his love of life when he gets behind the wheel of the Audi R8 V10 plus supercar and takes a night-time journey on a mountain road. The epic song 'Starman,' sung by the late David Bowie, provides the score as the astronaut remembers blasting into space as a young man.

'The Super Bowl continues to be a national platform for brands to showcase their creativity and voice,' said Loren Angelo, director of brand marketing for Audi of America. 'Audi was the first luxury auto maker to begin advertising in the Super Bowl nearly a decade ago, and the NFL remains an important platform for reaching our consumers.'

And while the R8 V10 plus goes on sale in the spring in the United States, the reviews are already in on the Big Game commercial for this new performance-halo car. Like many other brands that advertise in the Super Bowl, Audi released its entire spot in the week before the Big Game on February 7. An extended, 90-second version can be seen on YouTube.

'I got the chills when I saw this new ad from Audi,' wrote Will Burns, a Forbes.com contributor on branding. 'I've learned that getting the chills means two things: one, I've just witnessed a great idea; two, the idea moved me emotionally. This might be the best spot I've seen all year … Audi skillfully and artfully tells a story more worthy than most feature films.'

Taylor Weatherby of Hollywood Life, in a piece about the commercial, wrote: 'Super Bowl commercials are notoriously funny, but some can also tug at the heartstrings.'

Wrote Patrick Kulp of Mashable: 'No matter what else debuts between now and the Super Bowl, it will be hard for any commercial to have a more poignant soundtrack than Audi's just-released ad.'

This is the eighth showing by Audi in the Big Game, and the second time the brand has featured the Audi R8, the model that underscored Audi as a brand to be reckoned with and supercharged its growth trajectory in the U.S., which has included 61 straight months of year-over-year sales growth. The first R8 ad was a commercial parody of the movie, The Godfather, with a cameo by Kenny G.

'Launching our first supercar as a niche luxury player on the nation's biggest advertising stage was, at the time, a moonshot,' Angelo said. 'It is a risk that paid off.'

Photo credit: Audi
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