Dive Brief:

• Volkswagen's latest ad campaign is built around its new People First Warranty, but the creative comes across as decidedly late-'60s with an emphasis on the brand's iconic Microbus and a celebration of peace, love and harmony set to Joe Cocker's cover of "With a Little Help From My Friends," per The Drum.
• The 60-second ad was created by Deutsch LA and features a young couple driving a Microbus and picking up hitchhikers while heading to a music festival. A voice-over in the ad says, "VW drivers have always put others first. Now, we're returning the favor, with the People First Warranty."
• The retro theme reflects Volkswagen's status as an iconic brand of the '60s while updating the message for millennials, Greg Tebbutt, VW's director of marketing, told The Drum. "I would say millennials potentially have an even greater affinity with what that era signified than older generations," he said. 

Dive Insight:

VW is still trying to regain its footing following revelations a couple of years ago that it lied about car emissions. The new warranty, which promises customers who buy a 2018 VW a limited warranty of six years of 72,000 miles — the longest warranty compared to the competition, according to VW — is one way the company is trying to lure back customers and rebuild trust. The new campaign builds on the warranty with messaging that ties the brand and its new warranty to the spirit of giving and sharing associated with the late '60s.

Highlighting a music festival could also appeal to today's young consumers with whom music festivals are also popular and who are in the market to buy their first car. Winning over these consumers now could help VW build a whole new generation of loyal customers. 

Nostalgia has become a common marketing theme across a wide variety brands, and Volkswagen has a leg up in the retro space given its cars are closely tied to the flower child era. Whether nostalgia will be enough to convince consumers to forget about the emissions scandal remains to be seen. 

Other recent examples of nostalgia marketing include Taco Bell opening an old-school arcade in September as a pop-up out-of-home activation during the PAX West gaming convention in Seattle, Domino's turning to Ferris Bueller as inspiration for TV spots featuring Joe Keery from the Netflix series "Stranger Things” and, this summer, Fanta brought back the Fantanas after a six-year break

The goal of any nostalgia marketing effort is reminding people of good memories, or even just evoking a feeling of an era the target audience might not have even ever experienced, such as millennials with Volkswagen's nod to the '60s flower-power era.