VW's Glow-in-the-Dark Story Highlights Night Vision

Crossing the highway at night is a dangerous business for animals, especially on unlit rural roads. Last year, in Sweden, there were a shocking 60,000 accidents involving wildlife. 

To reduce the squashed critter count, Volkswagen has introduced Night Vision - an infrared camera that see over 300 meters in front of the car and reacts to the heat from animal and human bodies. To promote the feature during the country's darkest time of the year, NORD DDB created a print ad in the form of a cautionary children's tale - with a twist.

Published on the back page of Dagens Industri Weekend (the Swedish equivalent to the Financial Times), the ad featured two layers of ink - regular print ink and a fluorescent version. 

Penned in verse, the ad tells the story of a little deer who fails to heed his mother's warning and wanders too close to the road, just as a huge car approaches. If you read it in daylight, you can probably guess the unhappy conclusion: it's curtains for Bambi. But if you turn off the light or read it at night, an alternative ending is revealed in the glow-in-the-dark text - and it's an altogether happier ending.  

“You can read the ad in daylight and get a story about being careful when driving. But if you read it in the dark, the story will get a happy ending, and you’ll understand the effect of Night Vision. Almost like when you were a kid and wrote secret messages with a spy pen," explains Jeanette Asteborg, marketing manager at Volkswagen.