Highway Tales
Location based interactive storiesHighway Tales are location-based audio books that bring the highway to life. By using data and audio in a smart way, everyday objects like bridges, trees...
Highway Tales are location-based audio books that bring the highway to life. By using data and audio in a smart way, everyday objects like bridges, trees and windmills suddenly become part of exciting kids’ stories. Volkswagen introduced this campaign to stimulate children between 4 and 11 to interact with the world instead of just looking at a screen.
- Client
- Volkswagen, Achtung!
- Role
- Development
The stories are written by prize winning children book writers and although every fairy tale is already authentic, there’s a world of technical brilliance behind this idea. A specially designed ‘story engine’ detects elements next to the road and changes the stories real time. The weather, traffic and time also have an influence on the way the story is told. This way, every route is a unique adventure!
To create the stories, we worked with illustrators and prize-winning children book writers, like Daan Remmerts de Vries and Joke van Leeuwen. They made sure the app wasn’t just innovative from a technical point of view, but also contained stories that are authentic and creative. Using a mix of old-fashioned storytelling and principles like ‘I spy with my little eye’, Volkswagen changes every car ride into a story!
Highway Tales is the perfect example of a strong and well executed idea that changes actual behaviour. The app brings joy, fantasy and interaction to every car ride. Children are no longer focused on their screen but interact with their environment. The biggest compliment we received is the request of parents for more stories. The app was #1 in the Book Category in the Apple App Store within 3 days after launch. More than 100.000 stories were played, which are around 500.000 listening minutes. Time that was otherwise spent on a screen.
Highway Tales has received many awards, a Webby, 6 silver Lions at Cannes Lions, gold with Clio and Epica and two Grand Prix at Eurobest.