A look at Audi's advertising from 1981 – when Audi became the first piece of business that BBH won – to 2007, a period in which an overhauled communications strategy delivered a payback of £7.50 for every £1 spent alongside creating the UK's fastest growing prestige car brand.

This film tells the story of Audi's IPA Effectiveness Award winning paper from 2008 and is part a series celebrating some of the top case studies from 30 years of the IPA Effectiveness Awards; brilliant campaigns that still have much to teach us about planning effective communications today.

It features contributions from Peter Duffy, Head of Marketing, Audi UK, Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director, BBH and Fiona Walford, Director, Mediacom.

Campaign commentary is supplied by David Golding, Founding Partner, Adam & Eve (and Convener of Judges, 2010 IPA Effectiveness awards) and Neil Dawson, Founder, Hurrell Moseley Dawson & Grimmer, and Convenor of Judges, IPA Effectiveness Awards 2008)

Campaign summary

By the turn of the millennium, Audi had seen its share of the prestige car market grow steadily, gradually transforming it from a generic "Eurocar" into an established prestige auto marque.

Research revealed that the luxury car buyer is "always on", meaning that Audi's communications had to become part of their everyday lives if it wanted to make itself the overall category leader.

In order to achieve this, a new strategy was devised with the aim of asserting what made Audi truly unique.

Its long-term tagline, "Vorsprung durch Technik" - which can be roughly defined as the relentless desire to challenge and evolve, was used as the basis for an innovative creative campaign which sought to make icons out of the company's leading models, and to emphasise its design, performance and engineering credentials.

From 1999-2007, Audi posted record-breaking sales growth, while a comparison with its major competitors demonstrates that Audi's communications generated an incremental 50,000 car sales and a revenue ROI of £7.50 for every £1 spent.

Our thanks to Peter, John and Fiona for helping to make this film; to David and Neil for their effectiveness insight contributions and to Ed Booty, Adam Knight, Daniel Hauck and Rachel Hatton, for writing the original paper.