Volkswagen Celebrates Girls Having the Freedom to Be Themselves with Spot Directed by Olivia Wilde

Volkswagen shares its latest campaign in partnership with creative agency Johannes Leonardo. Directed by Olivia Wilde, ‘Water Girl’ is Olivia’s first endeavour directing an automotive commercial.

As a brand that has always bucked convention, Volkswagen SUVs are made to do anything but fit in. Instead of typical car ads that highlight the features of a car, ‘Water Girl’ harnesses real human storytelling. In this way, the VW Atlas stands out as the family SUV with the space and style that enables you to show up for those you care about in your own way.

Debuting during the Olympics broadcast this coming Sunday July 28, ‘Water Girl’ shows a little girl filling up 17 eclectic vessels with water and loading them into a Volkswagen Atlas. It’s later revealed that she is the Water Girl for her sister’s soccer team. Much like the Atlas, the hero and her cups are anything but conventional, in the best possible way.

This isn’t a series of spots where reality is exaggerated, these are real girls, captured in all their glory. They don’t feel the pressure to behave a certain way and are given the freedom to be themselves. These spots are just as much about the families that would buy a car that stands out and plays by its own rules, as they are about the car itself.

With Olivia Wilde at the helm, the campaign was developed and created predominantly by a team of women, both on the creative and production side. In a male-dominated space, having a women-led team brings a freshness and authenticity to the advertising, not often seen or celebrated in automotive.

Olivia’s signature charm is highly visible in ‘Water Girl’. Her unique talent for authentic casting adds immense depth to the spot. Ensuring that the work felt genuine, it was equally important to Olivia to portray the lead, in a way that felt like they had been plucked directly from the real world, for the viewers to observe her in a special moment.

Olivia Wilde, director, "I'm passionate about creating space for women in directing and portraying authentic female characters whenever possible. I loved the honesty of the characters and how much charm I knew my team and I could bring to this work."

Rachael Zaluzec, CMO & SVP, customer experience & brand marketing at Volkswagen of America, “As a brand that has always bucked convention, Volkswagens are made to do anything but fit in. So, in a seven-passenger SUV segment defined by conformity, the VW Atlas stands out as a family SUV with space and style; one that enables you to show up for those you care about, in your own way. It’s an SUV that called for a campaign that stands out like it does.”

Zoe Kessler, group creative director at Johannes Leonardo said, “The campaign is an important representation of women in car advertising, especially when they make up a large majority of the auto buying power. The choice of Olivia Wilde was extremely deliberate. She is magic in the way she captures texture and colour in her characters and celebrates women and girls in their full power in all her work. It is important to us, and hopefully refreshing to our consumers, to see girls subtly portrayed so normally, especially in car advertising, where women don’t make up a lot of the director lists or creative directors behind the scenes.”