“A great example of how a brand can leverage its past to connect with viewers on an emotional level.” —juror Eric Karjaluoto
“If you ever have to create a time line, this is the way to do it—immersive, nonlinear, hypervisual, highly informative and consistently entertaining.” —juror Tali Krakowsky
Overview: In 1955, Paul Loofs bought a Volkswagen Beetle and decided to drive it around the world—not once, but three times. Now, 60 years after its first global voyage, that Beetle is still on the road. Once More: The Story of VIN 903847, a documentary about Loofs’s remarkable travels with the car, premiered on the Discovery Channel and Bravo in January 2014. Oncemore.ca is an interactive companion site that explores the car’s history and gives a glimpse into the emotional bond a driver feels for his trusty vehicle.
• A unique interface combines the film with an interactive map and time line.
• The site features approximately 550 photographs and documents, 400 journal entries, and 350 interactive map pins.
• Visually, the site design borrows colors, typography and iconography from Loofs’s photographs and documents.
Comments by Red Urban:
What was the purpose of the project? “As much as Once More is a story about the car’s fascinating owners, it’s also a study of the Beetle’s role in the fabric of our culture and the enduring emotional connection people have with the Volkswagen brand. Continually growing this connection is critical to the company’s ongoing success and central to Volkswagen’s positioning as being more than just a company that makes cars. As such, Once More documents a true story that supports the insight that people are drawn to authentic, humanized brands.”
What are the project’s core features? “The documentary first aired on television, but also lives online as a fully interactive film, which allows people to not only view the movie, but also explore the places the Beetle has visited through many decades worth of pictures, journal entries and artifacts.”
Are there any special navigation features? “We created three ways the user could interact with the story of the Beetle: a film view, a map view and a time-line view. Each view gives you a different perspective of the Beetle’s journey, and users can move seamlessly between them. Documentary mode lets you watch the film with related artifacts appearing as pop-ups. Map mode shows where the Beetle has gone on an interactive map and highlights related artifacts and locations as the video continues to play. Journal mode shows the rich history of the journey through Paul Loofs’s journals and photography and can be filtered by day, month or year.”
