It looks like the ads in the Super Bowl are planning on doing a lot of teasing this year.

According to this New York Times article “Many of the glitzy, big-budget commercials that are scheduled to run during Super Bowl XLV on Feb. 6 will offer previews of coming products and services.”
VW is planning on building buzz around its new beetle.  During the spot, the entire car is never shown. Instead, the spot is centered on a beetle — small “b,” as in the insect — that startles other bugs by racing through a forest at a pace fast enough to evoke car chases in movies and TV shows.

The spot will end with the beetle’s landing on a rock in silhouette and turning into the silhouette of the 2012 New Beetle. These words will appear on screen: “The 21st century Beetle. Coming this fall.”

It’s an interesting idea, but if the campaign really wants to generate buzz leading up to the Super Bowl, there are a number of things they could do via social media and interactive banner ads that could go a long way to pique people’s curiosity (and for a lot less money!).

For example, last year, Ford used social media in a big way to tease customers about the redesign of the Ford Explorer, playing a similar game of never showing the entire car in any of the images shared on Facebook and Flickr.  You can read more about it here.

Perhaps this is what VW has in mind and we’ll all just have to wait and see.