Male Gen-Z Opps: Volkswagen establishes partnership with Christian Pulisic as digital spend rapidly increases

US Men's National Soccer Team player Christian Pulisic just became a brand ambassador for Volkswagen, broadening the company's US Soccer partnership. The deal will run through at least 2022 and will hopefully get Volkswagen in front of a larger audience. I expect new work starring Pulisic to launch sooner rather than later, so keep the company on your radar.

Since the beginning of 2021, iSpot reports Volkswagen has allocated roughly $82.5m toward national TV commercials, up 3% from the roughly $80.2m it had allocated by this point last year. The automaker ended up allocating roughly $108.2m toward this channel last year, down 36% from the roughly $170.3m it allocated in 2019. Volkswagen's 2021 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as NFL Football, Fútbol Mexicano Primera División, NHL Hockey, NBA Basketball and MLB Baseball.

According to Pathmatics, the company has spent approximately $30.2m on digital ads YTD, already 9% more than that of $27.6m it spent in all of 2020. Volkswagen's estimated full-year 2020 spend, $27.6m, was down 11% compared to that of $31.1m in 2019. So far this year, it has earned around 3.5b digital impressions via Facebook (38%), desktop video (22%), desktop display (21%), Instagram (11%), Twitter (3%), mobile video (3%) and mobile display (2%) ads. Top site destinations for this year's desktop video ads include youtube.com (88%), hulu.com, yahoo.com and twitch.tv.

Additionally, per Magellan, Volkswagen has aired 34 podcast ads within the past 12 months.

The company's primarily targeting Gen-Z right now via paid social, YouTube, OTT, Twitch and podcast ads, so sellers able to get the company in front of as many relatively younger consumers as possible will have an advantage securing revenue. This new partnership will help Volkswagen reach more of its traditionally male target demographic as well. Kantar data shows that the company also invests in local broadcast.

Agency & martech readers - You may have a shot at securing project-based work down the road, but I don't currently see major signs of upcoming reviews. Right now, Volkswagen works with creative AOR Johannes Leonardo and media AOR PHD USA.