When four German carmakers jointly posted on Weibo demanding that Audi issue a public apology, the whole internet erupted. Supporters of Audi blasted the move as hypocritical—those brands had mocked Audi in public first, and now they were hiding behind a lawyer's letter. Others sided with the Germans, insisting a young marque could never match the "century‑old" names in quality.
Minutes later Audi's official Weibo pushed a new clip. Viewers braced for an apology—only to find Audi doubling down with a twenty‑second, wickedly cheeky spot. The video opened with a block of text: Audi was a gentlemanly company, it claimed, that never targeted or insulted peers; in its eyes, everyone in the industry was "one family." Then the emblems appeared in sequence: BMW, Mercedes‑Benz, Porsche, and finally Volkswagen. As the familiar song "A Loving Family" swelled, the four circular badges drifted toward one another from the distance and, layer by layer, overlapped into a single figure—four interlocked rings. The screen cut to black on the downbeat. Anyone with a pulse could read the subtext: add the four of you together and you still make… Audi.
Barrage comments shot across the feed. Some laughed that Audi was "calling everyone brothers on the surface while making them little brothers in reality." Others marveled at the audacity: by couching the jab in the language of family and harmony, Audi left almost nothing a court could seize on. Netizens joked that the Greater China heads of BMW, Mercedes‑Benz, Porsche, and Volkswagen must be grinding their teeth; one quipped that Volkswagen was the most innocent—"why drag me in!"—given it had merely voiced support earlier.
Inside Volkswagen's China office, Arthur watched the clip, trembled with anger, and hurled his phone. Across town, Steve Zean at BMW China felt a déjà vu—he had done the same thing after Audi's previous ad. The two other country heads, from Mercedes‑Benz and Porsche, were no calmer. "Only Chinese would pull something so shameless!" one spat. "We have to sue—they're insulting us in broad daylight!" Another, more clear‑eyed, snapped back: "Sue on what? They literally said we're one big loving family." Even as they rushed back to their companies to plan a response, Arthur stewed at the collateral damage: this was a feud among the other three and Audi; Volkswagen had issued a righteous statement and somehow ended up cast as Audi's tag‑along younger brother.
The online crossfire intensified. Those who favored German badges called Audi's play "heat‑chasing" and demanded humility; Audi's defenders praised the brand's "no bluster, just action" approach and reveled in the poetic justice of replying to a lawyer's letter with a cleaner, cleverer piece of creative. The argument only amplified what Audi wanted most: attention and recall.
None of this surprised Heifeng Lu. When Audi's legal director brought in the joint demand letter—BMW, Mercedes‑Benz, Porsche, and Volkswagen insisting on a public apology within two days—Heifeng sneered. If they had the ability, let them sue. The keys in the earlier ad were custom props, sixty to seventy percent similar in silhouette to the rivals' fobs but not identical; in a rule‑of‑law society, evidence matters, and Audi had left them none. What did catch him off guard was Volkswagen's decision to pile on. "Our grievance is with those three," he thought. "Volkswagen wants to feel involved?" Fine—he would "apologize" to all four, publicly, at once. He sketched the concept on paper, even adding little diagrams to avoid ambiguity. Marketing turned it into the finished video in two hours. Heifeng watched it once, nodded, and ordered a full‑platform buy.
By the time the four Germany‑brand chiefs regrouped at Arthur's place to plot "an unforgettable lesson," Audi's second spot had already landed on their phones. The room fell into a stunned, ugly silence. The more they replayed it, the more infuriating it became: every frame was innocuous, every line professed fraternity, and yet the composition reduced century‑old marques into the visual raw material of Audi's four rings. It was satire with clean hands.
While they fumed, Heifeng was on a northbound flight. He hadn't visited his grandmother in nearly a year, and he knew he'd be thrashed with her cane if he showed up alone, so he dragged his sister and cousin Ye Lingzhi along as human shields—and brought "Audi" (the young spokesperson) with him to Beijing. By the time the four companies settled in to discuss how to make Audi "pay a price," Heifeng had already touched down and was switching his phone back on to watch the storm he'd whipped blow across the feed.