Every muscle car brand brags about roar. Audi took the sound of its RS line and asked: what if the roar could be read? In their striking new “Engine Symphony” campaign, Audi UK and BBH ditched smoky exhaust shots and tire burnouts, trading them for musical notation—turning engine bursts into sheet music as rich and detailed as a concert hall performance.
You don’t see the approach often: the campaign captures the sound design of RS models accelerating, then works with composer Ben Parry to transcribe those engine acoustics into actual sheet music. Every rumble, rev, and tonal shift is painstakingly listened to, measured, and notated. The result isn’t just clever—it’s oddly emotional, somewhere between a power chord and a precision instrument.
What makes “Engine Symphony” resonate is its setting. The visuals, deployed on outdoor and digital out-of-home displays especially near classical concert venues, spotlight the car models’ musical scores with titles like “Horsepower: X” and “Model: Y RS.” It’s meant to catch the attention of people already tuned up for orchestras—as if to say: your engine’s roar is another kind of music.
There’s elegance in the detail: sheet music isn’t always accessible, but the imagery here is clean and bold, the staff lines, clefs, and notes drawn with clarity. By choosing musical notation, Audi and BBH lean into heritage: design, engineering, art—all in one. The campaign feels timeless, like architecture, yet current—like turning your playlist shuffle into something tactile, something you can see.
In a market where high-performance car ads default to “look at me!” Audi’s play is quieter but no less ambitious. It privileges listening over spectacle, nuance over noise. It’s a reminder that performance isn’t just what you feel under the hood—it’s also what you hear inside.
This is advertising as craftsmanship. Audi shows that engineering isn’t just metal and torque—it’s texture and rhythm. “Engine Symphony” doesn’t just sell speed; it invites you to appreciate what a machine sounds like when it sings well.
When the engine roars become written notes, performance turns into poetry. — Julian Vega
