Audi: All Audi, all the time

A nice article about Audi's latest advertising efforts and especially about the Audi channel in UK.

While the European authorities debate the merits of product placement, one luxury car advertiser has raced so far ahead of the pack that it has roared into its universe.

In Audi's brave new world - or rather the nascent Audi television channel in Britain - all quiz shows, celebrity interviews, travelogues and spinning hubcaps eventually lead reliably to one brand.

For the last four months, the Audi-all-the-time channel has been offering a unique blend of programming directed at Audi owners and wannabees. The car manufacturer and its global ad agency, BBH, had worked on the channel for more than two years in a closely watched experiment to divert some marketing money from traditional 30-second television spots, which ad-skipping customers can ignore with devices like TiVo.

"This has been kind of a long journey," said Mark Boyd, director of content for BBH in London. "It's really challenging and very different from how advertising usually works. In mainstream advertising, we create a low volume of output - 30-second bands - with high production budgets. In this new year, we operate differently. What we're creating are high amounts of output with low budgets, low control."