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Audi kicks off ad campaign tonight with stirring new spot

Following last week's entertaining and wildly popular Spock vs. Spock video, Audi has come back with a bevy of videos for its new advertising campaign that will begin airing tonight in primetime and on cable.
There are five ads altogether, but the longest one, a 60-second spot titled It Couldn't Be Done, is our favorite by far. Set to a reading of the poem of the same name by Edgar Albert Guest, the commercial chronicles the history of Auto Union Deutschland Ingolstadt from the days of its founder, August Horch, through its many decades of innovation, competition and creativity. Indeed, watching the commercial gave us chills similar to when we first heard the Ram brand's Farmer commercial that aired during this year's Super Bowl.
The other four commercials are shorter 15-second spots that focus on such familiar themes as the company's Quattro all-wheel-drive system, the safety of its vehicles, their style and the company's advances in LED lighting. While less impactful than the longer ad, we think they effectively sound the drum beat of Audi's preferred tag line: Truth in Engineering. Scroll down to watch all five new ads, starting with the 60-second It Couldn't Be Done.

Audi revising own history in light of 'shocking' study of Nazi-era activities

Daimler opened up its archives for research into its Nazi affiliations for one book published in 1990 and another in 1998. The Quandt family behind BMW had its public catharsis in 2007. The ties between the National Socialists and the Porsche and Piech families have almost rendered the Volkswagen Beetle some kind of cult tchotchke of the Third Reich. And it's not just automakers called in for cleansing: Deutsche Bank credit helped build Auschwitz, Hugo Boss made Nazi uniforms, patriarch of food and frozen pizza giant Dr. Oetker volunteered for the Waffen-SS. As one historian said, for any business that wanted to stay in business during the war, "no company was really clean. Everyone had to resort to slave labor when their own workers were fighting at the front."
Audi is the latest to go public with findings from an in-depth study of the Nazi-affiliated past of Auto Union, its predecessor company, and the "Father of Auto Union" Dr. Richard Bruhn, the man who headed it pre- and post-war. Commissioned by Audi, written by Audi's history department head Martin Kukowski and University of Chemnitz historian Rudolf Boch, its findings are just as severe as those already heard so often over the past 20 years. Among other discoveries, the study found that not only did Brun manage the use of more than 3,700 forced labor camp workers from seven SS-run camps, 16,500 forced laborers that didn't live in camps worked in two more factories; Bruhn wanted even more laborers but couldn't get them because of the battlefield situation; and that Auto Union had "moral responsibility" for roughly 4,500 workers killed at the Flossenbürg concentration camp. The study found that disabled workers were routinely sent to the camp and executed there.
Audi works council head Peter Mosch said, "I'm very shocked by the scale of the involvement of the former Auto Union leadership in the system of forced and slave labor. I was not aware of the extent." The company is figuring out how it will respond to the findings, so far working on changing the online profile of Dr. Bruhn on its history pages on Audi sites around the world, and considering stripping Brun's name from the street that bears it and from company offerings like pension plans. If you can read German or can work Google Translate, Wirtschaftswoche has a long piece on the study and its conclusions.

Coronavirus prompts VW to stop production throughout Europe

FRANKFURT — Volkswagen Group, the world's biggest carmaker, is suspending production at factories across Europe as the coronavirus pandemic hits sales and disrupts supply chains, the company said on Tuesday. The German carmaker, which owns the Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Ducati, Lamborghini, Porsche, Seat and Skoda brands, also said that uncertainty about the fallout from coronavirus meant it was impossible to give forecasts for its performance this year. "Given the present significant deterioration in the sales situation and the heightened uncertainty regarding parts supplies to our plants, production is to be suspended in the near future at factories operated by group brands," Chief Executive Herbert Diess said on Tuesday. Volkswagen's powerful works council concluded it was not possible for workers to maintain a safe distance from each other to prevent contagion and recommended a suspension of production at its factories from Friday. Production will be halted at VW's Spanish plants, in Setubal in Portugal, Bratislava in Slovakia and at the Lamborghini and Ducati plants in Italy before the end of this week, Diess said. Most of its other German and European factories will prepare to suspend production, probably for two to three weeks, while Audi said separately it would halt output at its plants in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Mexico. Volkswagen's vast factories in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in Puebla, Mexico, and plants in Brazil were not affected, but that would depend on how the coronavirus spreads, VW said. Volkswagen has 124 production sites worldwide of which 72 are in Europe, with 28 in Germany alone. "2020 will be a very difficult year. The coronavirus pandemic presents us with unknown operational and financial challenges. At the same time, there are concerns about sustained economic impacts," Diess said.   Production in China resumes Volkswagen Group sold 10.96 million vehicles last year, putting it ahead of Toyota based on the latest figures from the Japanese carmaker. Globally, VW employs 671,000 people and it delivered 4.86 million vehicles to European customers in 2019. Only last month the car and truck maker based in Wolfsburg, Germany, predicted that vehicle deliveries this year would match 2019 sales and forecast an operating return on sales in the range of 6.5% to 7.5%. "The spread of coronavirus is currently impacting the global economy. It is uncertain how severely or for how long this will also affect the Volkswagen Group.