The best communication design of the year – Audi is Red Dot: Brand of the Year 2016
The most successful brand of the year has been announced: It is Audi. The brand’s on-going communications campaign won over this year’s Red Dot Award: Communication Design jury. This year, Audi has won over 16 Red Dot Awards as well as two Red Dot: Best of the Best awards – and therefore the honorary title “Red Dot Brand of the Year 2016”.
Red Dot: Brand of the Year
Every year, there is a brand that stands out in the Red Dot Award: Communication Design competition, impressing the Red Dot jury with its highly innovative design solutions across a number of entries. The award is given for the quality of the design and the strong decision making when it comes to brand management – regardless of whether the expertise came from external agencies or in-house resources.
Four rings that spell brand success
Audi’s brand history begins with its world-famous logo. It skilfully brings together the company history and today underpins its corporate identity. The four rings symbolise the 1932 consolidation of four, until then, independent automotive manufacturers - Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer.
The 1986 advertising spot showing an Audi 100 quattro driving over a ski jump is still unforgettable. Today, Audi demonstrates outstanding communication abilities across in all media channels. Over the years, Audi has worked successfully with a range of different agencies. The company has also been in constant touch with the creative industry, be it for brand management, traditional advertising, company reports or web design. Audi projects always leave a memorable impression – very much in keepping with the Latin meaning of the company’s name – “audi” (Hark!), an original idea of the company’s founder August Horch, whose name in German also means “hark” or “listen”.
The fact that Audi managed to carry off 18 distinctions in the Red Dot Award: Communication Design demonstrates that the company has the edge in communication. Audi can look back on successful collaboration with such renowned agencies as SCHMIDHUBER, Designliga, KMS BLACKSPACE, PLANWERKSTATT, STAGG & FRIENDS, SK Planet, 21TORR, MUTABOR Design GmbH, thjnk and the loved gmbh. This has resulted in numerous impressive projects including the 2015 Audi dealers’ meeting in Barcelona, the MATRIX Pop-up Club & Store at the Frankfurt Motor Show or the Audi Magazin app.
“Audi’s brand identity is unmistakable. Anybody who sees the four rings associates them with superior quality cars,” says Prof. Dr. Peter Zec, founder and CEO of Red Dot. “For decades, Audi has managed to impress customers, partners, service providers and also our jury with its communications campaigns. A distinction in the Red Dot Award: Communication Design is given above all for good design, innovation and creativity. Every project, every app and every campaign is judged on an individual basis. What is important is not a comparison with other brands, but a product’s own design quality. It therefore gives me particular pleasure that this year’s title has gone to a company that has, together with the most successful agencies, scored highly for decades with its outstanding communications.”
Giovanni Perosino, Audi’s marketing communications manager, says: “It is a great privilege for us to receive our fourth honorary Red Dot award since 2010. It reflects our goal authentically to convey the essence of the four rings wherever people come into contact with our brand. It is just as vital to use progressive means to keep surprising people as it is to express consistency and continuity. Reinventing the brand while staying true to it is a truly fascinating job. Today, we approach this task from more angles than ever before – from digital transformation to live experience marketing. The impressive winning streak at the Red Dot Design Award is a wonderful endorsement of the Audi team as a whole and of our joint work with highly effective partners.”
Red Dot Gala in Berlin
On 4 November 2016, award winners will be honoured at the Red Dot Gala in Berlin. The best of the best will receive their trophies on stage at the Konzerthaus Berlin. However, participants will be kept on tenterhooks to the end, as it is only during the award ceremony that the winners of the highest individual distinction, the Red Dot: Grand Prix, will be announced. This is the moment when representatives of Audi will receive the honorary title “Red Dot Brand of the Year”. After the Gala, 1,400 international guests celebrate the award-winners in the Designers’ Night at Berlin’s E-Werk. The after-show party also offers guests an exclusive viewing of the winning works for one night only in the “Design on Stage” exhibition.
