Audi A1: the marketing blitz falls flat

The Audi A1 flips over

Audi are getting in a bit of a mess with the A1 marketing, with some dire Justin Timberlake videos and an A1 ending upside down.

The Audi A1 should be a breeze for Audi. They’re perceived as makers of premium cars and the A1 looks to offer everything buyers expect in an Audi, but in a smaller package.

And things got off to a decent start. We had the usual teases on the A1 and a nicely judged contentious statement from Audi’s head of quality – Werner Zimmermann – who said that the Audi A1 is “…the only premium car in its sector”. Which grabbed Audi a column inch or three, as was no doubt intended.

So a decent start to what should be a good pitch from a car maker that really knows its market and its marketing onions. But it seems to be going a bit Pete Tong.

The picture at the top is from a marketing blitz Audi have been running in Cinqunantenaire Park in Brussels. They’ve been giving rides up and down a skateboard-park type setup (as you can see above) to show what a great handling car the A1 is. Shame is that one of their drivers got it completely wrong and flipped the A1, complete with passengers.

It seems Audi got the driver and his passengers out pronto and no one was hurt, although the car was rapidly despatched from the scene under covers.

Audi have tried hard to keep the pictures under wraps, but have obviously failed. On the other hand, Audi have been working themselves in to a frenzy pitching an inane and boring series of A1 action films featuring Justin Timberboots. Frankly, they were so poor we didn’t bother running them.

But in the spirit of kicking Audi when they’re down – which is such a rare occurrence we must make the most of it – we’ve posted the latest Timberlake A1 offering below.

Maybe it’s just us. If you really like the VT we’ll shove the others up too.