Volkswagen Reframes Road Safety as a Duty to The Others
Volkswagen's 'The Others' is a 2019 film campaign created by DDB Paris that promotes the IQ.DRIVE intelligent driver-assistance suite by reframing road safety as a collective responsibility — the car's systems protect not only the driver but every other person sharing the road.
Published in France in May 2019, the campaign centres on a single film asset built around a deceptively simple narrative inversion. A voiceover complains about the incompetence of other road users — the distracted pedestrian, the hesitant cyclist, the unpredictable driver — while the camera captures each scene from the perspective of an unseen motorist. The structural reveal reframes the entire argument: every person on screen is simultaneously someone else's 'other,' making mutual protection the logical and emotional core of the IQ.DRIVE proposition. The campaign's objective was to shift the conventional safety-technology message away from self-interest and toward a broader, more humanistic benefit — positioning Volkswagen's intelligent driving assistance not as a shield for the owner but as a safeguard for the wider community of road users in France and beyond.
The campaign was submitted to Clapboard's global advertising archive approximately six years ago and carries a Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative craft and an original conceptual angle tempered by the constraints of a single-asset format and the inherent difficulty of translating a nuanced philosophical argument into mass automotive advertising.
DDB Paris identified a tension at the heart of automotive safety communication. Most driver-assistance advertising in the French market, and across the broader European automotive category, positions technology as a personal benefit — the driver is protected, the driver is in control, the driver arrives safely. That framing, while rational, is also self-referential and ultimately limited in its emotional reach.
The strategic planner on the campaign, Loïc Morando, helped construct an insight rooted in a universal psychological truth: drivers consistently rate themselves as above average while viewing other road users as the primary source of danger, as reported by research widely cited in road-safety literature across European markets. 'The Others' exploits that cognitive bias directly, using the voiceover's complaints to draw the audience into a position of comfortable superiority before dismantling it with the reveal.
In France, the automotive market represents one of Western Europe's most competitive arenas, with Volkswagen facing sustained pressure from domestic rivals including Renault and Peugeot-Citroën, the latter now operating as Stellantis. Volkswagen Group reported 10.9746 million vehicles delivered worldwide in 2019, up 1.3% from the prior year, according to volkswagen-group.com, demonstrating the scale of the brand's global ambition even as the broader passenger-car segment contracted. According to focus2move.com, global passenger-car volume reached approximately 79.6 million units in 2019, a decline of 4.0% year over year, making differentiation through brand values and technology credibility — precisely the territory IQ.DRIVE occupies — a commercially rational priority. By making IQ.DRIVE the technology that protects everyone, DDB Paris elevated the suite above a feature specification and gave it a moral dimension that competitors' equivalent systems lacked in French market communication at the time.
The creative execution of 'The Others' rests on a precise marriage of visual discipline and structural writing. Executive creative director Alexander Kalchev, art director Mickaël Jacquemin, and copywriter Benoît Oulhen constructed a script in which every visual moment serves a double function: it illustrates the voiceover's complaint while simultaneously building the evidence for the reveal, as documented by adruby.com and Little Black Book.
The film was directed by the duo Si and Ad through production company Wanda, with director of photography Barry Ackroyd behind the camera. Ackroyd's choice of handheld, naturalistic cinematography — consistent with work he has brought to feature-film productions — grounds the film in an observational register that feels documentary rather than constructed. That texture is essential to the campaign's argument: the 'other' drivers and pedestrians must read as genuinely ordinary, not as exaggerated comic types, for the philosophical point to land with credibility. Colorist Mathieu Toullet at Mikros MPC Advertising handled the grade, maintaining the desaturated, ambient palette that keeps the film tonal rather than cinematic in the conventional automotive-advertising sense, per lbbonline.com.
Editor Paul Watts shaped the pacing, with post-production completed by Mikros. The rhythm of the edit is deliberate: each 'other' is given enough screen time to register as a fully realised human presence rather than a visual shorthand. Producer Antoine Bagot oversaw physical production, with TV production led by Corinne Persch and Johanna Lubin at DDB Paris, and post-production coordinated by Jérôme Deplatière. Production credits for music supervision on 'The Others' are not fully publicly documented beyond the core crew listed across adsoftheworld.com and adruby.com. The cumulative craft choices earned the film recognition at multiple international award shows, validating the decision to invest in observational realism over conventional automotive spectacle.
'The Others' accumulated a substantial awards record across the international creative industry circuit. The campaign received a Bronze at Cannes Lions 2019 in the Craft Film category for Cinematography, according to adsoftheworld.com. At the Clio Awards 2019, the film earned three Bronze awards — in Cinematography, Copywriting, and Direction — as reported by adruby.com. The Epica Awards 2019 recognised the work with a Bronze in Copywriting for Storytelling, also per adruby.com. Additionally, the ADC New York recognised the campaign in 2020, as documented by nyfadvertising.com and adsoftheworld.com, extending the film's award life beyond its launch year.
No verified consumer performance data for 'The Others' — including sales uplift, brand-tracking shifts, or media reach figures specific to the French market — is publicly available at the time of writing. The structural case for effectiveness, however, is coherent. A campaign that reframes a technology feature as a community benefit creates purchase justification at both rational and emotional registers, which is particularly valuable in the French automotive market where Volkswagen competes directly against Renault and Stellantis brands with deep domestic loyalty. The single-asset format limits scale but concentrates creative impact, which explains the film's strength in craft-focused award categories. The Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100 reflects this balance: exceptional cinematographic and conceptual execution within a narrow distribution footprint.
'The Others' is a 2019 film by DDB Paris promoting Volkswagen's IQ.DRIVE driver-assistance suite. It uses a voiceover complaining about other road users, then reveals that every driver is someone else's 'other,' reframing safety technology as collective protection rather than a personal benefit, as documented by adsoftheworld.com.
DDB Paris created 'The Others' for Volkswagen, publishing the campaign in France in May 2019. The core creative team included executive creative director Alexander Kalchev, art director Mickaël Jacquemin, and copywriter Benoît Oulhen, with direction by the duo Si and Ad through production company Wanda, per adruby.com.
'The Others' won a Bronze Lion at Cannes Lions 2019 in the Craft Film category for Cinematography, according to adsoftheworld.com. The campaign also received multiple Clio Awards Bronze wins in Cinematography, Copywriting, and Direction in 2019, and an ADC New York recognition in 2020, per nyfadvertising.com.
Volkswagen IQ.DRIVE is a label for a suite of safety-oriented intelligent driver-assistance systems. 'The Others' promotes it by shifting the benefit argument from self-protection to mutual protection, positioning the technology as a safeguard for all road users rather than solely the Volkswagen driver, as documented across adsoftheworld.com and adruby.com.
Barry Ackroyd served as director of photography on 'The Others,' bringing a handheld, observational visual style that grounds the film in documentary realism. Colorist Mathieu Toullet at Mikros MPC Advertising handled the grade, maintaining the naturalistic palette central to the campaign's tone, per lbbonline.com.
'The Others' holds a Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's strong cinematographic craft and original conceptual framing, balanced against its single-asset format and the challenge of conveying a nuanced philosophical argument within the conventions of automotive advertising in France.
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