Audi made an executive decision that is destined to put them in the hall of fame for genius advertising. The method to their madness involved the understanding that Americans love cars. So their marketing people got together to create a plan to bring together the love of soccer, World Cup broadcasting, the biggest electronic scoreboard ever created and….cars.

Using the Greenpoint, Brooklyn shores, Audi assembled forty two shipping containers in a stacked format to create a huge pixel display. Unlike most electronic scoreboards that use LED’s to create letters and numbers, Audi put twenty eight Audi A8 sedans inside the shipping containers. Ok, now you are wondering how could THAT create a scoreboard effect? Each time a goal was scored, they used both headlights and brake lights to light up the inside of the containers. While it really doesn’t have the glitz and glamor of a true World Cup electronic scoreboard, you have to give Audi Kudo’s for creative genius. The videos of their display have already gone viral.

This is commonly known as ‘guerilla marketing’ for those in the biz and in this case, the cost to Audi was quite a ‘pretty penny’. They had the location, the containers, the cars, the intense amount of cable and wiring as well as the fanfare and advertising to get everything noticed and publicized. The cars along tally up around $2.1 million.

An interesting thing to note is that Audi took the scoreboard concept seriously. Albeit, the scoreboard could only display a single digit, but they really made a valiant attempt. Audi used 2 ½ miles of cables that they connected directly to relay boards for each of the car’s LEDs and then connected to a central controller. They had a computer operator following the scores from Brazil so that everything could be reflected in the ‘Audi scoreboard’.

One might wonder why such a huge dollar investment for soccer scores? Well, as with anything in marketing, this might have been a limited show, but it is now something that has made Audi a hot topic name around the globe. And there is one other caveat that Audi is counting on, as the look to the July 31st game in Meadowlands, New Jersey in the Audi Football Summit.

Somehow, we might envision some future television ads that feature their grandiose electronic scoreboards made out of cars. If all goes well, they may rethink the idea and make it more glitzy the next time. After all, they have four years to think about the 2018 World Cup game, so who knows? The next World Cup tournament location may not make a difference to Audi, but we can almost anticipate that there will be crazed technicians creating diabolical devices for even bigger and flashier scoreboard effects.