Drivers Wanted. Again.

The new Super Bowl spot reimagined an iconic campaign from the 90's but accidentally dialed 2010.

This year, VW and Johannes Leonardo are bringing back the car company’s iconic campaign Drivers Wanted, which first aired in 1995. This is the extended 1:30 version. The :30 will air during the “big game.” The question isn’t whether revisiting the idea still works—it’s whether it’s being pushed far enough.

Thirty seconds is all it needed, anyway, as it’s not a complicated spot or complex message. Stop being stuck inside. Go out and live your life. It’s well-produced and upbeat.

It’s set to House of Pain’s “Jump Around,” a 1992 banger that has appeared in dozens of movies and ads including for Walmart, Bridgestone, Pringles, as well as a Super Bowl spot for Coke in 2014. Time magazine gave the Coke spot a B, calling it “conventional.”

The Great Invitation is inclusive and energetic. It’s attempting to introduce the campaign’s messaging to a new audience, primarily because it has to.

VW sales are down.

Volkswagen’s US sales fell 13% in 2025 with steeper drops in key segments. It isn’t helping that their lineup is aging and the few new models on offer aren’t seeing much traction. The news is even more bleak in China where Volkswagen fell from number one to number three in sales.

Gen Z isn’t interested in driving.

A McKinsey report found that in 1997, when Drivers Wanted was hitting its stride, “43 percent of 16-year-olds and 62 percent of 17-year-olds held a license. By 2020, only 25 percent of 16-year-olds and 45 percent of 17-year-olds had a driver's license.”

Inflation has also skyrocketed car prices. Last year, the average price of a new car was over $50,000. Even the average price of a used car was $26,000, which makes my daughter’s $15,000 2012 4Runner seem like a bargain.

The landscape is bleak, so VW had to find a way to stand out and gain some awareness. A Super Bowl spot for maximum reach makes sense and VW is hoping to rekindle that magic with a campaign that worked well in the past.

It’s An Invitation To Make a Celebration

According to Media Post:

The reimagined campaign invites a new generation to embrace individuality, curiosity, and encourages saying yes when opportunity calls, says Rachael Zaluzec, senior vice president of customer experience and brand marketing.

“The original era of ‘Drivers wanted’ resonated because it instilled possibility through originality,” Zaluzec tells Marketing Daily. “Today, this sentiment still rings true. We chose to reimagine it at a time when people are looking for joy and optimism, with an uplifting invitation to get back in the driver’s seat.”

I know what “On the road of life there are passengers and there are drivers. Driver’s wanted,” means. I’m not sure what “instilling possibility through originality” means. I’m also not sure how many people out there can afford a sixty-thousand dollar driver’s seat, which is how much ID EV bus costs.

What I do know is that the original campaign resonated because the spots weren’t superficial. They were quirky, emotional, relatable, and story-driven.

Storytelling Versus Telling Stories

The word “storytelling” gets thrown around a lot in advertising, but only in the context of “brand storytelling,” which is just corporate speak for “advertising.”

What I’m referring to is actual storytelling with plots that feature a beginning, middle and end, or at least a suggestion of an end. The best of the original Drivers Wanted commercials were stories, often with a great soundtrack.

In the reimagined invitation, a VW makes an appearance here and there, but there’s no stakes involved. The car is a literal vehicle to get people somewhere, and that’s it. It’s mostly about the vibes—connection, spontaneity, togetherness, rather than narrative with consequences..

This new spot is a cool kid montage that involves people inviting other people out, dancing in the rain and an ice cream truck. VW shows up sometimes, including the 2025 ID EV bus.

If they had included celebrities, a sofa on a street corner, or a party on a roof it would look like an adidas Originals ad from 2008-2010. Originality is an old idea, and one that’s harder to claim when cultural shorthand is doing all the work.

In the original Drivers Wanted campaign, the car was a silent protagonist. The stories couldn’t have happened without VW because they depended on the car to happen.

“Pink Moon,” is one of the most iconic spots ever made. If you read the script on paper, it sounds boring. A group of kids are headed to a party, pull up, and realize they are having more fun driving. They set it to Nick Drake, made advertising magic, and caused everyone to discover a long lost musical artist in the process.

In “Big Day,” the story is a simple to the point of cliché. Guy tries to beat the wedding clock so he can “speak now or forever hold his peace.”

It is interspersed with running footage that somehow doesn’t feel gratuitous. For those not in advertising, running footage is car porn. Performance shots on long winding streets, or cruising over the same bridge in downtown L.A. or over the salt flats. Auto brands do this to make their dealers happy because car dealers think you won’t buy a car unless you see the badge (logo), and a 3/4 profile.

“Sunday Afternoon,” is set to the catchiest song to ever come out of Germany, “Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha,” by Trio.

This encapsulates the so-called GenX slacker ethos in a way that didn’t pander but was actually authentic. Yes, kids, we used to drive around doing nothing for hours. This was when gas was a buck. Ask your parents.

The VO isn’t really needed but adds to the deadpan sarcasm. “The German-engineered Volkswagen Golf. It fits your life. Or your complete lack thereof.”

Is Gen Z Even Watching?

You can’t fault VW for wanting to grow its market share. You can’t fault them for wanting to reimagine what worked. A Super Bowl media spend doesn’t come cheap but the bet here is that a hundred plus million people will see the spot. And maybe they will.

But that’s a big maybe. And the stats back it up.

In 2022, an Emory University marketing professor released a study that found only 23% of Generation Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) defined themselves as “avid sports fans” compared to 42% of millennials, 33% of Generation X (people born between 1965 and 1980) and 31% of baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964).

The average age of viewers watching primetime NFL games on broadcast television is 62.5, according to a 2024 report from Front Office Sports.

Hopefully this isn’t a one off; VW could continue to tweak an idea that is still solid, three decades later. They just need to get the emotion right. Who knows? Maybe telling stories still works.

Because the issue right now is that conceptually, their reimagining is stuck in a liminal space: Not old enough to recapture the emotional narrative depth of 1995 to remind people what made it so special. But just old enough that the 2008-2010 vibe comes across as a retread. VW needed a risk. It might have been better if they took a bigger one.