PoloDriver

Environmental protection is the top priority for Volkswagen: new campaign for efficient driving and environmental awareness

Volkswagen launched its new ‘Think Blue’ campaign on 27 February, using and building on its BlueMotion tag for its greenest and lowest-polluting models. The company says that ‘protecting the environment is simple and everyone can help in their everyday lives,’ and that along with BlueMotion, it is ‘sending out a new signal for sustainable mobility.’ Marketing puff maybe, but the newest incarnation of the Polo BlueMotion is set to play a major part in the Think Blue marketing campaign.

Fielding press and TV advertisements, brochures, web specials and the Think Blue Challenge game for both the iPhone and iPod Touch, all the marketing strands feature a focus on potential savings, sustainability and environmental awareness. The popular interactive Volkswagen Polo Challenge game for example, seems to have been adapted to become the Think Blue Challenge app, where gamers drive more environmentally to use less fuel. In all materials for the campaign, the predominant colour is – ironically for a green campaign – blue, again underpinning the BlueMotion philosophy. The company’s goal is to establish Think Blue as an expression of its corporate mindset and a firm feature of its ecologically sustainable activities.

Linking its future with its past, Volkswagen is pillaging its archives to come up with the launch advertisement, featuring the infamous ‘Think Small’ strapline, which trumpeted the international success of the Beetle in the 1960s. ‘The “Think Small” slogan symbolises Volkswagen’s achievement in democratising mobility the world over. The challenge of the future lies in achieving efficient and sustainable mobility for everyone. This is expressed by the campaign: “Think Small” has become “Think Blue”,’ Luca de Meo, Head of Marketing at Volkswagen Passenger Cars explains.

PoloDriver may not be at the 2010 Geneva motor show physically, but, fresh from Volkswagen’s now-traditional evening press conference, are these two new footage clips showing the forthcoming Polo GTI and CrossPolo in action. Along with world debuts for both the new Sharan and Touareg, the latest variants of Volkswagen’s fifth-generation supermini were unveiled to the press yesterday.

Filmed in what appears to be an Arctic wasteland (but was more than likely somewhere in snow-covered northern Europe), both new pieces of Volkswagen film show the Polo GTI and CrossPolo doing lurid tail-out drifts in the frozen white stuff, while various close-up shots zoom in on the details of the cars that we’ve not yet seen much of. And, in the case of the CrossPolo, there’s an extra reason to celebrate – Magma Orange is back!

Both clips herald the arrival of the PoloDriver YouTube channel. We hope to bring you more footage from Volkswagen, as well as TV commercials and other short films of Polos in action. Click on the videos below to see the clips of the newest additions to the Polo family and head here to subscribe to PoloDriverTV.

While Polos are obviously our main interest here at PoloDriver, we do have a roving eye for most other Volkswagen models, too. So, last summer, we took a 1.2-litre Fox Urban to the North York Moors for a 1200-mile road test to see if Volkswagen’s city car can do most of what the Polo can do, but for £2000 less. Can the smaller, Brazilian-built town tiddler be a true cut-price Polo alternative, and is there character busting to get out under all that functional practicality? For answers to these questions and more about the global Fox family, read our digital mini-mag (previewed below) here.

Ahead of its Geneva motor show debut next week, the Polo GTI has put in another appearance on Autocar.co.uk this week. Largely a story to show off the magazine’s ‘exclusive’ pictures, the new shots show close-up details of the car, missing from Volkswagen’s official photos which were released last week. The standard twin exhaust pipes and headlamps with optional LED daytime running lights feature in the new shots. The magazine also claims that the 178bhp, DSG-equipped car goes on sale in the UK in August and confirms the availability of a family friendly five-door model.

Head over here for the full story and new pictures.

[Image: Stuart Price for Autocar]

Monthly UK title Volkswagen Driver features the 1990-1994 Polo Coupé GT as the star of its model profile section in its March 2010 issue. With five detailed pages devoted to the spritely small Volkswagen, the magazine looks back at the Coupé GTs life with period Volkswagen photographs and ‘anorak’-type panels covering the colour and trims available as well as a full technical specification. The page of owners’ opinions also features two of PoloDriver’s long-termers, with Simon Kimber and Rich Gooding explaining why the sometimes overlooked GT appeals to them.

Grab a copy of the March 2010 issue of Volkswagen Driver from all good newsagents (find your nearest stockist here), or contact Autometrix Publications on 01525 750500.