The Force: why millions watched a VW ad for a remote-start button

In 2011, Volkswagen's Super Bowl ad showed a little boy in a Darth Vader costume trying the Force on the washing machine, the dog, a doll. Nothing works until the Passat in the driveway starts. It was his dad, in the kitchen, pressing the remote start.

VW put it online days before the game, and by 2015 it had over sixty million views, the most-viewed Super Bowl ad online. Plenty of cars had remote start by then. What people watched was the kid's face, and everyone remembered being that kid.

Most founders post the feature, and every competitor has the same one. Show the moment it gives your customer. That's what your name comes to mean.

Be the obvious choice, not another copy.