VW already regarded cinema as a valuable environment in which to advertise its brands, as they previously had successful associations with cinema, sponsoring film seasons and ODEON's Movie Mob Saturday morning film club for children. Therefore VW were keen to further their involvement with cinema and give itself the versatility to reach across its target audience of 25-64-year-olds, enabling it to promote the full spectrum of its car range.

The continuing objectives of Volkswagen's cinema sponsorships have been to take its relationship with the cinema audience beyond the ad reel and give the brand a unique association with the cinema-going experience in a fun and engaging way.

The key to the sponsorship was the Independent Cinema audience: 84% of the audience is in the 25+ age range, 74% are ABC1s. Independent Cinemas have an established following of discerning cinemagoers who deliberately choose the environment of an Independent in which to see quality mainstream and limited release films. The audience perfectly matched VW's target consumer. There have been five waves of research commissioned by the Cinema Advertising Association to track Volkswagen's sponsorship of Independent Cinemas over the last two years.

After the 5th wave of research 22% spontaneously recalled the VW sponsorship, an increase of 15% on the first wave of research. 32% recalled the VW sponsorship after prompting, an increase of 7% on wave 4. After 3 mths of the second creative being played there was a 67% recall after description.49% of respondents said they would definitely remember the credits were for VW. 67% of cinemagoers thought sponsorship of Independent Cinema was a good thing. After five waves 42% of cinemagoers said they would consider VW in future, the highest consideration since the research began

Independent cinemas are a perfect place to showcase the VW brand. The longevity of the campaign means that cinemagoers are starting to associate VW with film as has happened with other brands such as Orange and Stella Artois.