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vw fun theory case study

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What Is a Case Study?

When you’re performing research as part of your job or for a school assignment, you’ll probably come across case studies that help you to learn more about the topic at hand. But what is a case study and why are they helpful? Read on to learn all about case studies.

Deep Dive into a Topic

At face value, a case study is a deep dive into a topic. Case studies can be found in many fields, particularly across the social sciences and medicine. When you conduct a case study, you create a body of research based on an inquiry and related data from analysis of a group, individual or controlled research environment.

As a researcher, you can benefit from the analysis of case studies similar to inquiries you’re currently studying. Researchers often rely on case studies to answer questions that basic information and standard diagnostics cannot address.

Study a Pattern

One of the main objectives of a case study is to find a pattern that answers whatever the initial inquiry seeks to find. This might be a question about why college students are prone to certain eating habits or what mental health problems afflict house fire survivors. The researcher then collects data, either through observation or data research, and starts connecting the dots to find underlying behaviors or impacts of the sample group’s behavior.

Gather Evidence

During the study period, the researcher gathers evidence to back the observed patterns and future claims that’ll be derived from the data. Since case studies are usually presented in the professional environment, it’s not enough to simply have a theory and observational notes to back up a claim. Instead, the researcher must provide evidence to support the body of study and the resulting conclusions.

Present Findings

As the study progresses, the researcher develops a solid case to present to peers or a governing body. Case study presentation is important because it legitimizes the body of research and opens the findings to a broader analysis that may end up drawing a conclusion that’s more true to the data than what one or two researchers might establish. The presentation might be formal or casual, depending on the case study itself.

Draw Conclusions

Once the body of research is established, it’s time to draw conclusions from the case study. As with all social sciences studies, conclusions from one researcher shouldn’t necessarily be taken as gospel, but they’re helpful for advancing the body of knowledge in a given field. For that purpose, they’re an invaluable way of gathering new material and presenting ideas that others in the field can learn from and expand upon.

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VW’s Fun Theory Takes Cyber Grand Prix

In Cannes Volkswagen’s Fun Theory won a Cyber Grand Prix with honour. One big engagement idea led to over 700 user created ideas. A true example of smart social branding, invisible technology and real-time interaction.

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These efforts ignited a broader appeal within the general public to create their own acts that turned mundane, good-for-you tasks into other fun experiences. I suggest you take a good look at the site: funtheory.com or the Facebook page .

The jury existed of jury president Jeff Benjamin, co-chief creative officer of Crispin Porter & Bogusky, led the panel. The campaign was created by DDB Stockholm.

The user created winning ideas:

Bottle Bank Arcade – TheFunTheory.com

Piano Stairs – TheFunTheory.com

The world’s deepest bin – Thefuntheory.com

How do you like the engagement idea? Share your ideas below.

More smart social branding ideas? Follow Igor Beuker on Twitter or grab our RSS Feed to be the first to know.

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Behind the Work: Volkswagen's 'The Fun Theory'

DDB Stockholm recently launched Rolighetsterorin, or "The Fun Theory" campaign, an initiative to get people to change their lazy behaviors?and ultimately, how they feel about driving environmentally friendly cars?by allowing them to see the fun side of acting responsibly.

"The campaign has just started up with a number of experiments in which the theory?that fun can change people's behavior?is tested in various situations," says DDB Stockholm creative director Andreas Dahlqvist. One of the most charming tests is a staircase in a Stockholm subway station that was converted into working piano keys?a way to convince commuters to take the stairs over the escalator. Another test uses sound effects to make throwing rubbish away properly a cartoon-like experience.

The experiments are being seeded through various channels and are live on rolighetsteorin.se , with English versions to appear soon on thefuntheory.com . A contest also encourages visitors to upload their own applications of The Fun Theory. A prize of 2500 Euros will go to the creator of the winning experiment, decided on by a panel Swedish experts in behavioral science and environmental issues.

As for the carmaker's own contribution, "Volkswagen's answer to the theory will be presented at a later stage on a separate website amongst other media," says Dahlqvist. "The site will display their whole range of environment technologies and cars?many, many fun ways to do something for the environment."

In this article:

vw fun theory case study

Ann-Christine Diaz is the Creativity Editor at Ad Age. She has been covering the creative world of advertising and marketing for more than a decade. Outside of the job, she can be found getting in touch with her own creativity.

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vw fun theory case study

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vw fun theory case study

Fun Theory: how positivity inspires action

If fun gets you there, that’s fine….

One of our favourite fables involves an argument between the wind and the sun over who was more powerful. To settle the matter, they challenged each other to make a passing traveller give up their cloak (this was back when cloaks were a thing). The wind blew and blasted but the traveller only tightened their grip and pulled the cloak more closely around them.

Exhausted, the wind gave up. The sun smiled and shone, its pleasant rays warming the traveller so that they soon unfastened and discarded their cloak by choice. The moral is simple: it’s easier to get someone to do something if they want to do it. And that’s the principle behind Fun Theory.  

Fun Theory had been around for a while before it burst into our consciousness through an advertising campaign by Volkswagen.

The essence was to encourage people to do the right thing by making it fun . At a busy subway station in Sweden, Volkswagen installed piano stairs – stairs that looked like giant piano keys and played a musical note when anyone stepped on them. They were positioned right next to the escalator. This enabled people to play a tune by walking up the stairs, rewarding them for making a healthier choice. It was a huge success; usually, 95 percent of travellers took the escalator but now, 66 percent were choosing the stairs. Watch the video, below;

Why did this work? It’s based on the reality that we humans often need a good reason to do something that we perceive to be annoying or harder work – sometimes we need an incentive to do the right thing. In the case of the piano stairs, it’s easier to take the escalator and more effort to take the stairs, even though we know the latter is better for our health. A few people will take the stairs for that reason alone, but most need an extra nudge in the form of some fun!

Humans are pretty much hardwired for fun; we enjoy having fun and will go out of our way to do fun things.

It can therefore be a strong motivator for our actions, and this is what Fun Theory plays on; fun is the reward for doing something we might not otherwise do.

A sense of fun is also important in communications. To communicate effectively and to persuade people to act you need them to engage with your content and messaging. Fun is a great way of engaging people: it makes them want to read more; it makes them feel positive about your message; it makes them want to act because they associate your message with positivity. As the adage goes, they might forget what you said but they won’t forget how you made them feel.

Here it’s important to differentiate between fun and funny. Fun content is something enjoyable, whereas funny content makes you laugh – and we’re not suggesting you should try to make subjects like plastic pollution humorous. However, adopting a fun approach that is positive and engaging (as opposed to severe and depressing), can deliver a serious message very powerfully without belittling the subject.

The positivity that comes from fun is crucial in communicating difficult subjects such as the climate crisis – especially if you want to compel people to act. Negativity breeds negativity and content draped in horror and despair can form a huge barrier to action – why should I act if it’s all so awful and we are all doomed? Positivity is infinitely more effective and ‘fun’ content comes with an implicit sense of hope.

So, how can Fun Theory be applied to purpose-driven topics, such as pollution and climate change? Being purpose-driven, the goal is to change behaviours: recycle more; save water; switch to green energy. The seriousness of the situation cannot be denied but it doesn’t have to be dwelled upon.

Consider another of Volkswagen’s Fun Theory stunts: the world’s biggest bin drop . It created a special sound-effect-emitting bin that made a comical, cartoon-like noise, like something falling off a cliff, whenever rubbish was dropped into it. It was a huge success, so much so, that members of the public actually started collecting discarded litter to drop in the bin, just for the fun of it.

Making recycling fun is, superficially at least, more about the fun of the action than the dangers of plastic pollution in our oceans. What matters is the end result, the action, not why that action was taken. If someone recycles a plastic bottle because it is fun or feels good, the bottle is no less recycled than if they acted through fear for the planet. When that feel-good action becomes a spontaneous habit – job done.

Inspiring people to change their behaviour and do the right thing is the goal. If it’s fun that gets you there, that’s fine.

At Creature & Co., we know that fun has a valuable role to play in our communications. We specialise in purpose-driven topics, and find that it resonates with audiences young and old. Even the most serious of grown-ups still value a sense of fun, and it can work wonders for inspiring those people to act.

To truly shape behaviour, information and understanding are key, so injecting fun into articles, quizzes, and other modes of explaining complex topics helps to inform, inspire and empower positive action. Today, many brands aspire to do the right thing, and many of them hope to inspire their audience to do so, too. As content creators, we can try to force or frighten people into doing something, or we can make them want to do it by applying fun.

Just like the sun and the wind, we know which method works best!

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SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

The course website and blog for the fall 2015 instance of penn state's sc200 course.

SiOWfa15: Science in Our World: Certainty and Controversy

The Fun Theory

fun-theory-logo-samples1

Taking the stairs instead of the escalator is something we always heard from our doctor, or seen in a magazine. But most of us don’t heed the warnings. This is just one of the obstacles that The Fun Theory took on.  “The Fun Theory”  was created by Volkswagen Sweden and ad agency DDB Stockholm as a competition to recognized that “fun is the easiest way to change people’s behavior for the better.” One of Volkswagen’s fun theories included was the Piano Staircase . The theory was that people would take the stairs more often instead of the escalator or elevator by making the staircase “fun.” The hypothesis propositioned that by making a staircase more fun to do, people would stop using easier ways of transportation, such as escalators. By promoting the use of stairs, we could eventually improve the health of others by promoting an active lifestyle and a good well-being.

piano-stairs2

In the concluding video you can see that more commuters became interested in the musical staircase. The resulting video showed that the interactive staircase persuaded 66% more people than normal chose to use the staircase instead of the escalator.

Although there could have been a third variable involved, such as more active people commuting on one day instead of the other, or the role of chance coming into play, the statistics are strong and would be very interesting to see in a more controlled experiment.

The goal with these fun theories are to promote Volkswagen’s new environmentally friendly  BlueMotionTechnologies brand. DDB Stockholm quotes that “as traditional advertising is becoming less effective, and the competition in the market for environmentally sound cars is becoming more fierce, we believed we needed a more innovative approach to draw attention to BlueMotion.” Although Volkswagen’s main goal is to promote their new car, they bring up a very goo theory. That making this fun can promote and teach the world. He also goes on to say that “[Volkswagen’s] experiments and our Fun Theory films make the world a better and more fun place to live.”

Watch the video to see how fun can transform people’s way of thinking and doing.

6 thoughts on “ The Fun Theory ”

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I loved your post and definitely think it’s a great idea in hopes of getting people to become more active. In NYC there used to be a huge toy store (it just recently closed) and there was a huge floor piano that customers could try. So I imagine this experiment was something like that. I also did some research and discovered that there were multiple experiments performed based off of this “Fun Theory”. One of them which I found interested was a speed detector which took pictures of the cars driving the proper speed rather than the wrong one. These drivers were later awarded with free lottery tickets. Based on the results I believe that these experiments have been overwhelmingly successful and should start to be applied to other aspects of our lives. What about applying the “Fun Theory” to encourage people to walk places rather than taking public transportation or their own vehicles?

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Pretty cool idea! I would definitely take those steps in a heartbeat. It is an interesting study and I feel as though we can do a lot more with it. You can have musical panels to step on in airports instead of standing on that moving runway that goes like .5 mile an hour. It is kind of ironic that Volkswagen is doing these fun tests in order to promote their cars, instead of for the sake of improving healthy lifestyles. But at least their cars are environmentally friendly and efficient.

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Wow-this is so cool! I have never seen fun stairs but if I did, I think I would definitely opt to take them instead of an escalator. That is such a good idea! However, if these “fun” stairs were to become a trend, would people still take them as much? Or are there different types of “fun” stairs being introduced, so that people don’t grow tired of them. Either way, implementing this alternative is a great way to get people to take the healthier route upstairs!

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This post was even fun to read about and watching the video was very interesting. I am very happy that someone has finally decided to promote exercise to citizens in a fun and easy way. I think that they could apply this technique to all parts of life and it would be very effective. People would not even realize that they are exercising because the fun element takes away the negative thought of moving.

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This was an extremely interesting post because I had never heard of the Fun Theory. It is a very interesting concept, one that could have many positive impacts in this world. I can definitely see how people would be more interested in taking a piano staircase than a regular one. However, I am curious as to whether they looked to see if it was consistently successful. After using the piano staircase several times, would the novelty wear off? People may get tired of the noise or lose their interest and revert back to taking the escalator. This was a very creative post, and it was also very relatable to the daily debate whether to take the elevator or the stairs.

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The piano stairs was a perfect example to support your claim. It is a really interesting thing that we all do but never really notice, I would have never thought of this idea on my own. Good job!

Comments are closed.

Jennah Kriebel

Jul 13, 2015

Fun Theory — An Innovative Approach to Reposition your Company

In this article, we explore a case study involving an eco-friendly car, a staircase vs. escalator decision, and the psychology of fun. We noticed that in Europe (versus in California), the topic of energy is perceived as boring, dull, and even slightly distasteful. In California, new energy-related technologies are a hot, even sexy topic and the subject of many, many startups. We are interested not in why this European perception is the case, but whether changing it matters, and if so, how to do it with impact.

1. The history of fun

“Daddy, do you remember before my fifth birthday? I whined every day. When I turned five, I decided not to whine anymore. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And if I can stop whining, you can stop being such a grouch.”

This quotation comes from a situation between Seligman, one of the initiators in the area of positive psychology, and his daughter Nikki. Seligman was weeding in the garden, focusing in order to get done as fast as possible. Nikki in contrast had another approach. She was jumping around, having fun, dancing, and singing. Seligman felt that he was hindered doing his work and yelled at his child. Nikki ́s perceptive response was about to trigger a significant change in Seligman ́s profession.

Before World War II, psychology had three functional branches: 1) curing mental illness; 2) making lives more productive; and 3) identifying and supporting talent. After the war, psychologists found that they could earn the most money for the first, curing mental illnesses. The other two branches were neglected until 1999, when the scene above between Seligman and Nikki occurred. It is only since then that research in the area of positive psychology, focusing on strengths and virtues, is emerging strongly.

How does this relate to your business? Keep on reading! There’s a return of approximately 1500% on invested fun coming up.

2. Flow — an excellent cognitive, emotional and physical state of mind

The field of positive psychology aims not at improving “the worst in life,” rather at creating and building positive qualities. It is centered around three branches: the past; the present; and the future. In the area of marketing, the present is the relevant branch — it is about the here and now, when businesses want to gain access to the customer and establish a relationship into the future.

“Flow” research aims at identifying the psychological state of complete immersion in an activity. Within the present, the research has developed the concepts of optimal experience and well-being, within the greater context of the term “flow”.

3. Flow, as deployed by Volkswagen Sweden

Usual (boring) everyday life activities, such as walking up the stairs (boring), fastening your seat belt (boring), or waiting at a red light (boring) are each activities that are not perceived as positive. Far from creating “flow”, they are perceived to be boring, at best. Crucial in this context is the use of the word perceived .

Is it the activities that are necessarily boring, or rather their contextualization and setting within our everyday life experience that makes them so? Is it their existence or something else that gives customers the perception of a purely functional meaning? What happens if a positive significance is added to these activities? Could consumer behavior possibly be changed?

Volkswagen Sweden, in cooperation with the marketing company DDB, started a campaign in 2009 that pursued the aim of bringing fun to seemingly boring everyday experiences. In case you haven´t seen it yet, click here to watch a boring energy-powered escalator ride transform into folks hopping, skipping, and jumping up the stairs, ecologically powered by their own feet.

With the transformation of the staircase into a giant piano, 70% of users took the stairs — up from (approximately) 0%. “Of course they did,” we imaging you are thinking,

“everyone knows how much fun giant pianos are from seeing the movie Tom Hanks’ movie Big . This is obvious.”

The (perhaps obvious, in retrospect) perceived happiness in participating in the giant piano operated as a positive reinforcement, and a reward. That reward of flow satisfies the positive psychology of the people on the stairs, and nudges everyone to behave in a way that is better for the world: by using their own — more ecological — feet.

4. Business Implications of Fun

The overall goal of this innovative approach must not be forgotten — because giant pianos and staircases do not directly relate to the products of Volkswagen Sweden. Volkswagen started this campaign to raise awareness for its BlueMotion Technology EcoCars in Sweden. Two primary targets were pursued: gaining market share and improving brand image.

Volkswagen entered the Swedish market for EcoCars much later than many direct competitors. Surveys revealed that consumers felt they had to compromise fun to buy an environmental friendly car — eco-friendly cars had the reputation of being less enjoyable (more like a bus than like a Tesla). In fact, the whole concept of new energy had a boring or even distasteful sentiment in Europe, whereas at the same period of time in the California, green energy was seen with a powerful positive sentiment.

Volkswagen decided to give “fun” a try in Europe, with clear goals for market share (selling 2,500 EcoCars in 2009) and brand image (shift consumer sentiment towards EcoCars).

Individuals involved in the piano-stairs project had the opportunity to see that environmental friendly activities can be positive, fun, and can lead to happiness — whether that means taking the staircase or driving an EcoCar. In fact, they may have been having so much fun on the stairs that they didn’t think about this activity as a lesson in ecology at all — their flow simply led them to feel happiness about doing something fun (and environmentally friendly).

The piano-stairs campaign went viral on social media, so the experiment not only affected those individuals who were actively able to play the staircase but also those who were able to see the experience on the Internet. As a result, the association between the campaign ́s message — environmental friendliness can be fun — and the product was subtly but successfully converted; from the piano-stairs experience to a positive brand image of Volkswagen Sweden.

The overall investment for the piano-stairs marketing campaign was 100,000€. The impact on sales for 2009 exceeded expectations — 60% more cars than targeted were sold (around 4000 instead of the targeted 2500).

6. Conclusion

As Volkswagen Sweden puts it, they “succeeded in consumers re-thinking their brand”. To refer back to the quotation from the introduction, the “grouchy” (unfun, boring) energy-concious topic was able to stop being viewed as (an unfun, boring) “grouch” any longer. The marketing campaign positively reinforced the view of Volkswagen Sweden as being an innovative, pioneering, and future oriented company.

The point here is that Volkswagen´s basic approach — focusing on flow and positive psychology — applied in 2009 could be relevant to many companies in other industries that are currently attempting to reposition their perceived image — whether that industry is energy, insurance, or banking.

We invite you to think about whether your customers could be actually having fun with you, no matter how NORMAL their normal interaction with you is. We believe you can make it fun — try channelling Mary Poppins ! We wager a bet they will reward you for the improvement in their flow.

Mutu Yönel & Jennah Kriebel, Ph.D.

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Investment advisor, tech strategy, int’l speaking

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vw fun theory case study

Lerne mit deinen Freunden und bleibe auf dem richtigen Kurs mit deinen persönlichen Lernstatistiken

Nie wieder prokastinieren mit unseren Lernerinnerungen.

What if you could change people's behavior for the better by doing something fun? It doesn't sound plausible, right? Yet, that's what Volkswagen achieved by creating something they called the fun theory.

Goal of the Fun Theory

In the early 2000s, Volkswagen saw great potential in green innovation and founded BlueMotion to create technologies that would improve fuel efficiency and electric cars. However, at that time, the efficiency and autonomy of those early models were not excellent, and people were reluctant to buy energy-efficient and electric vehicles.

That's why Volkswagen started an ambitious project to create a marketing campaign that would promote Volkswagen BlueMotion technologies. Instead of launching a traditional car marketing campaign to promote the performance of the vehicles, they decided to test a theory. Their idea was to change people's behavior by making an activity more fun to do. They wanted to advertise that people could continue driving and positively impact the environment by reducing their gas emissions without compromising the joy and pleasure of driving.

Volkswagen Fun Theory Campaign

The Volkswagen Fun Theory campaign was designed in partnership with Nord DDB STO. It launched in 2009 as a series of three short videos that were live experiments of this theory in action to positively change people's behavior by doing something fun. Those videos quickly became viral and were spread all over the Internet, giving Volkswagen unexpected popularity. 1

Volkswagen Fun Theory Piano Stairs

For their first experiment, they tried to motivate people to take the stairs instead of the escalator in a metro station. To achieve this, Volkswagen's team installed censoring stairs in the shape and form of piano keys next to an escalator. Then, whenever people were walking on the stairs, it made the exact sound of the piano. Soon many people were having fun walking the stairs, and the experience was quite successful, as 66% more people were using the stairs instead of the escalators. 2

By implementing a creative marketing strategy and gamifying walking on stairs, Volkswagen managed to change people's behavior while promoting its brand and creativity.

Fun Theory Volkswagen Piano Stairs StudySmarter

Volkswagen Fun Theory Talking Bin

For their second experience, Volkswagen tried getting more people to throw rubbish in bins. They devised a creative idea to achieve that goal by installing a sensor and a speaker in a bin. As a result, whenever people threw something in the trash, a loud falling and crashing cartooning sound came from it. Quickly, people gathered around the bin to determine where the sound came from; they even collected rubbish on the ground around the bin to hear the sound again. Thanks to that engaging trash can, they collected 72 kg of trash in one day, 41 kg more than the standard bin close by. 3

With this campaign, Volkswagen was able to connect some principles of sustainable marketing to its brand by motivating people to discard their waste correctly. Simply by creating a fun sound, they have encouraged people to use that bin and even collect trash lying around to hear that sound again.

Volkswagen Fun Theory Bottle Bank

In this campaign, Volkswagen's goal was to get people to recycle more. Volkswagen created an arcade bottle bank machine with flashing lights, music, and a scoreboard to do so. The device was like an arcade game: people had to press start, then put bottles in the machine's holes, which would play music and give them points on the scoreboard. The result was great as one hundred people used the device in one evening, while a nearby machine was only used twice. 4 By making a game out of recycling, people were motivated to come and recycle their bottles, promoting the brand's creativity and eco-friendly approach.

Fun Theory Examples

After the success of the Fun Theory campaign, Volkswagen decided to continue the experience with a slight twist. The concept was unchanged, but they tried associating their brand with speed by motivating people to choose Volkswagen's fun solution.

Fun Theory: Slide Stairs

In this video, Volkswagen's team returned to the first metro station they had visited the year before and installed a slide on the stairs next to the elevator. The people who wanted to go faster could take the slide and enjoy a fast ride to the bottom without taking the stairs or the elevator. 5

Fun Theory: The Elevator

This time, Volkswagen went to a mall to help people who wanted to go faster to use their specially designed elevator. Volkswagen customized an elevator and gave it a rocket launcher style. Instead of having to stop at every floor, the elevator would go from the ground floor directly to the top floor. When people got inside and pressed the button, a countdown started while the doors were sliding closed, and red flashing lights began to light on. When the elevator started ascending, people heard the sound of a rocket ship launching; meanwhile, they could enjoy the ride directly to the top. 6

Fun Theory: The Shopping Carts

Volkswagen's team went to a grocery store and modified the mall's carts to integrate a skateboard. People had the choice between regular shopping carts or using the ones with a skateboard to slide with speed in the supermarket. Volkswagen was able to change consumer behavior by showing a faster lane. 7

Volkswagen Fun Theory

The Fun Theory Award was established shortly after the first Volkswagen videos came out, thanks to the campaign's success. This award inspired people to discuss and develop new ideas around this theory. People submitted more than 700 ideas using the 'fun theory' in hopes of changing people's behavior positively.

The award winner in 2009 found a creative way for people to respect the driving speed limit by organizing a lottery using speed cameras. Every person who exceeded the speed limit would be flashed and pay a fine like usual, but the money would be collected in a common pot. Each person who respected the speed limit would be recorded on camera as a participant in this lottery and get a chance to win the prize. 8

Fun Theory Speed camera campaign StudySmarter

The fun theory is an excellent source of inspiration for many entrepreneurs who implement these ideas in their products to make boring activities more interactive:

It can be tedious for parents to teach their children how to brush their teeth, as kids' attention span is very short. However, we can now see kids' electric toothbrushes playing music to reward them once they have finished cleaning their teeth.

Pizza Hut came up with an innovative way to select and order pizza, rather than the boring way of having to read through a menu. They have designed an interactive table where people can make their selection and clearly see the pizza's size while choosing it. 9

People have found an alternative to the sound trashcan by installing a basketball hoop on top of a bin. With that addition, people could have fun throwing trash in the bin.

Fun Theory - Key takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions about Fun Theory

--> what is the fun theory volkswagen .

The fun theory was a marketing campaign launched by Volkswagen in 2009 to promote the sales of eco-friendly cars by stating that they were just as much fun to drive as regular cars.

--> How does the Fun Theory work?

The fun theory is simple: people are more likely to do something if it is fun. You can apply this principle by making an activity more fun to do to influence people’s behavior. 

--> What is the fun theory connected to?

The Fun Theory is connected to behavioral change.

--> Who came up with the fun theory?

Volkswagen and ad agency DDB Stockholm came up with the Fun Theory campaign.

--> Which company sponsored the Fun Theory project?

Volkswagen sponsored the Fun Theory project.

--> Who created the piano stairs experiment?

Volkswagen and ad agency DDB Stockholm created the piano stars experiment.

Final Fun Theory Quiz

What is the Volkswagen Fun Theory?

Show answer

Show question

How does the Fun Theory work?

The fun theory is a simple concept: someone is more likely to do something if it is fun. In other words, if you can change an activity to make it more fun, people will be more likely to do it.

What is the fun theory connected to?

Behavioral change

Who came up with the fun theory?

Volkswagen and ad agency DDB Stockholm

Which company sponsored the Fun Theory project?

Who created the piano stairs experiment?

What was the product Volkswagen wanted to promote thanks to this campaign?

BlueMotion technology

Why did Volkswagen create the fun theory?

Volkswagen used the fun theory to promote BlueMotion technology and advertise that people could drive and reduce their carbon emissions without compromising the joy and pleasure of driving.

After the success of the fun theory, what was the name of the project Volkswagen was promoting?

How many ideas were submitted to the fun theory awards after its campaign success?

What was the goal of the piano stairs experience?

That people take the stairs instead of the escalator.

What was the goal of the bin experience?

To incentivize people to throw their trash in the bin.

What was the goal of the bottle bank experience?

That people recycle more.

When did Volkswagen launch its fun theory marketing campaign?

How effective was the piano stairs experience?

66% people were more likely to take the stairs than before.

of the users don't pass the Fun Theory quiz! Will you pass the quiz?

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