Volkswagen Super Bowl Ad Will Poke Fun At Intense German Engineers

Volkswagen will air a 60-second commercial at this year’s Super Bowl, marking the the car brand’s fifth consecutive year as a Super Bowl advertiser.

The company announced the news Friday, saying its TV and social media advertising for this year’s game will build on its “tradition of sharing simple, human stories.”

The commercial will run during the second quarter of the game, and will feature the whole VW line-up — with an emphasis on the Passat.

Justin Osborne, Volkswagen’s U.S. general manager of advertising and marketing communications, said the company will focus on the power of German engineering at this year’s game, which will take place at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Feb. 2, 2014.

Osborne said the company’s distinctly German attention to detail makes for great cars, but comes from a humorous intensity and meticulousness, which the Super Bowl ad will make light of.

“It’s really about the obsessiveness of German engineers, but the real focus and intentness they have on making better cars,” Osborne said. “We’re kind of poking fun at ourselves.”

As it has done for past campaigns, Volkswagen will use the internet to run teasers for the 2014 commercial. Osborne said that while in the past these teasers have been limited primarily to digital video footage, the company is using a “different recipe” this time around.

He said fans will start seeing online activity from the brand about 7-10 days before the game.