SAAB | INFINITE DRIVE | 2004
Driving the "inside" instead of the "outside" / SAAB "INFINITE DRIVE"
In 2004, back when internet connections were still slow, there was an ad that tried to create a drive that never ends.
The problem
When you think of car ads, the usual picture comes to mind: a shiny new car tearing through hairpin turns or across salt flats. But SAAB didn't follow that pattern.
The insight
Instead of showing the outside of the car, they showed the inside. More precisely, the inside of the person gripping the wheel. What crosses your mind while driving became the core of the film.
The idea
When you opened it in a browser, the words "infinite drive" appeared, and footage of a drive through California started playing. Instructions overlaid the screen: click the main window to change your point of view, or click the small window in the bottom right to jump to another scene. As the car keeps moving, English questions float up inside it: "Why does left become right in a mirror?" "Why does your own song always come on whenever you enter a tunnel?" A line drifts by suggesting that maybe every exit is the entrance to somewhere else. Eventually the car glides into a parking spot, passes over "TEST DRIVE" painted on the pavement, and the screen switches to the move your mind™ logo. From there you move into a menu called "Why? What if? Why not?", and choosing the 9-3 Convertible lets you flip through numbered views of the CargoSET cargo system and the soft-top opening and closing. Pressing PLAY MOVIE plays the driving footage in a small window. In an era of thin bandwidth, this was a clever trick: rather than adding more footage, they looped it to create the feeling of an endless journey.
What happened
It won a Gold Cyber Lion at Cannes in 2005. FWA also praised it as simple but effective.
Afterthought
If you can't show the outside, show the inside instead. Out of the constraint of a loop came the experience of something infinite. That's the kind of creative thinking that came from an era when the technology wasn't quite there yet.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2004
