Voting Opens To Find the People's Reviewer With Volkswagen's Tiguan

MILTON KEYNES, UNITED KINGDOM – September 2, 2009: The search by Volkswagen for ‘The People’s Reviewer’ is nearly complete as voting opens on the final three contestants’ video reviews of the Tiguan off-roader today (Thursday 3 September) at www.thepeoplesreviewer.com.

The competition, created by Volkswagen’s marketing agency Tribal DDB, was launched to find a new type of car reviewer who could put Volkswagen’s versatile off-roader through it paces using a range of different social media channels.

More than 1,000 people submitted a video review, and over the summer more than 160,000 people visited ‘The People’s Reviewer’ website and 12,500 people registered a vote for their favourite of the nine shortlisted videos. Each video featured a new and imaginative way to test the versatility of the Tiguan over the period of one week and their stories were followed on a range of social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.

From the nine videos selected, three clear winners emerged which truly showed the all-round abilities of the vehicle; Harriet Gore from Preston turned her Tiguan into a moneybox collecting for charity, Johnny Hindle from Dorset demonstrated the Tiguan’s towing capabilities by pulling a selection of vehicles…all at the same time and Eric Banton from London got his family involved to help him fully explore the Tiguan with a thorough ‘real-life’ test.

The three finalists have now been set one final task each, which sees the Tiguan put through its paces on a race track, the city streets and down on the farm. The finalists’ efforts will be uploaded to the website on Thursday 3 September and judged by the public over two weeks to see who will be named ‘The People’s Reviewer’ and drive away with a brand new Volkswagen Tiguan.

Kirsten Stagg, Volkswagen Marketing Communications Manager commented: ‘Reaction to The People’s Reviewer campaign has been fantastic, and it keeps growing at an ever increasing rate. It has been interesting to explore the new areas of the media with the Tiguan, and see how people react to the genuine, impartial reports on the car.’

The video reviews can be viewed, and voted on, at www.thepeoplesreviewer.com and the winner will be announced on Friday 18 September. All voters will also be entered into a prize draw to win a range of prizes including the use of a Tiguan for three months and a luxury UK break