Saatchi & Saatchi, this is branded entertainment at its absolute best.

No woman can resist a story about unrequited love. Saatchi & Saatchi has used the classic heart-tugger to keep women riveted to a less captivating story – the one about a vacuum cleaner (albeit a vacuum that cleans all by itself).

It’s a familiar story, that every woman has experienced, given a twist that puts the product (and what it can do) up front and central. A toy robot falls in love with a Kobold VR200 vacuum robot, that doesn’t return the interest no matter what the toy does.

The Saatchi & Saatchi team, headed by Dusseldorf’s Christian Rätsch, Stéphanie Rupp and Alexander Reiss won the job against five competitors in a multilevel international pitch and has now developed this launch campaign for the eight key markets Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and China.

The Saatchi & Saatchi campaign for the Kobold VR200 robot includes the TVC and online film, Love Sucks, display ads, digital content, social media, and literature and retail marketing strategies for Vorwerk’s own shops.

The campaign’s ideas were developed in Düsseldorf in collaboration with international offices from the Saatchi & Saatchi network.

Much if the credit for the power of the TVC has to go to director, Jamie Rafn, and production company, Smuggler. The entire story is told with no words except for the lyrics of the classic love song, This Guy’s in Love with You, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and originally recorded by Herb Alpert in 1968.

“A robot vacuum is a high-tech product, which we would like to take out of its niche. The challenge is that we have to explain this technical product and highlight the superiority of the Kobold VR200, but we must also present it in a highly emotional manner,” stated Alexander Reiss, executive creative director at Saatchi & Saatchi Düsseldorf.

“To us, Vorwerk is a client for the heart that understands how important it is to communicate their brand and products emotionally as well as strategically,” added Christian Rätsch, chief executive officer of Saatchi & Saatchi Germany.