As it brings back the Scout automotive brand after a 44-year absence, a Volkswagen Group-backed startup is leaning heavily into nostalgia, including a bit of Creedence Clearwater Revival. The classic rock band’s “Long As I Can See The Light” backs an ad called “Revival” that begins Scout’s first major ad campaign that hypes a new pickup truck and SUV set to roll off a South Carolina assembly line beginning in 2027.

The ad, from Venables Bell & Partners and directed by John Hillcoat, portrays a factory worker driving home from his last shift at a Fort Wayne, Indiana plant in 1980 where the last original Scout was made. He is shown bonding with his daughter over the vehicle and she later takes it to college. The spot ends by showing her as an adult working at the new Scout plant with the tagline “Scouts Always Come Back.”

While vehicle comebacks are not unprecedented—Ford in 2021 brought the Bronco back after a two-decade absence—Scout’s return carries plenty of business intrigue. 

In the automotive world, Scout is an iconic name, created by International Harvester, a one-time farm equipment giant whose boxy Scout was first sold in 1961 as one of the nation’s first SUVs. Volkswagen took control of the Scout name in 2021 when its commercial truck division acquired  International Harvester successor Navistar International. Volkswagen in 2022 established Scout Motors as an independent company in a move to gain ground in the highly profitable American truck and SUV business where VW has lagged.

While Scout Motors has been previewing its brand to the auto industry since 2022, it did not reveal the new vehicles until Thursday afternoon during a ceremony in Franklin, Tennessee—a site purposely chosen as the halfway point between the old Fort Wayne plant and Blythewood, South Carolina, where Scout is building a $2 billion manufacturing plant. Industry observers were finally fed details on the two vehicles, including that the Scout Traveler SUV and Scout Terra Truck will come in two configurations—one battery-powered all-electric variant with 350 miles of range and another version that incorporates a gas generator to reach a range of more than 500 miles.

The company has quietly been working with Venables Bell & Partners on the marketing and brand positioning since 2022. The agency in August won AOR status after a review. The win gets Venables back into the automotive business for the first time since 2021 when it parted ways with Audi U.S. 

Scott Keogh, Scout’s CEO and president, has ties to the agency. He worked with the shop while at Volkswagen Group-owned Audi of America where he was CMO and later president. He left in 2018 for Volkswagen of America until he took the Scout role in late 2022.

Ad Age earlier this week caught up with Keogh and Venables founder-chairman Paul Venables to learn more about Scout’s marketing plans. Below, more details on how the company is trying to revive an auto icon for a modern audience.

Solving the EV riddle

Launching a new SUV and pickup truck brand is no easy feat, given the dominance of Ford, Chevrolet and other classic American brands. That task becomes even more challenging when doing so with electric versions of the vehicles at a time when consumer appetite for EVs is falling short of expectations. Jessica Caldwell, assistant VP for insights at Edmunds, predicted that “the road ahead for Scout is going to be a bumpy one.”

“Right now, the biggest issue facing the U.S. consumer is affordability, so launching an electric, off-road centric vehicle lineup isn't necessarily filling a critical gap in the market,” she said in emailed comments. Scout vehicles carry a starting pricetag of around $51,000.  

“In the best of times, launching a new brand is challenging as building brand awareness is costly and takes time,” Caldwell said. “This is only amplified in the car market where consumers like to buy vehicle brands they have owned before or have positive experiences with—and understandably so, given their cost.”

Scout is addressing some of those concerns with marketing that rekindles positive Scout memories. A video released earlier this week called “Encore” that teased Thursday’s reveal featured classic Scout images as well as scenes of present-day Scout owners enjoying their classic cars as the brand plugs a “new era.” 

Scout is confronting the EV conundrum with some flexible configurations. Consumers can opt for a version that has a battery electric powertrain equipped with a built-in, gas-powered generator that can recharge the battery (described as a range extender), or go with the fully electric version. 

One of the new ads plays into that flexibility by suggesting the brand listened to consumer demands for EV power “with a bit of gas.” In a press release, Scout notes that it has a flexible production process so it can “respond to evolving market demand.”

“This is exactly what America is screaming for,”  Keogh said about the flexible configurations. “So whether America flips [to EVs] in 2035, or 2040 [or] 2050… we've got the technology that can move both ways.”

Media playbook

Scout began its brand work two years ago by visiting small businesses familiar with the brand name, even stopping at the site of the old Scout factory in Fort Wayne.  “It’s going to be way less about big mass audiences, big mass marketing, much more about building a community—country fair(s), visit by visit, blow by blow,” Keogh said. 

But Scout will still rely on traditional advertising as it begins taking online sales reservations this week that require a refundable $100 fee for a spot in line. Rather than using existing dealerships, Scout says it is building a direct-sales model powered by what it describes as “an exclusive Scout Motors retail network.” 

The “Revival” ad will run on TV this weekend during NFL and college football.

But Scout will soon shift to a more digital and streaming-led approach, said Venables. The agency is working with Boulder, Colorado-based Supply on media. “The trucks aren't rolling down the assembly line until 2027, so from a marketing point of view, we have to kind of manage this time period,” he said, suggesting it would seek to lean into “cultural conversations.”

“We’re still building a brand because a lot of people weren't around in1980 when the last one rolled off the line and or didn't know much about it,” he added. (Those familiar with the old Scout include VP candidate Tim Walz who recently featured his 1979 International Harvester Scout in a campaign video.)

Bench seats and mechanical switches

“This brand is so rich that we will constantly by monitoring and seeing what play we need to make when and where,” Venables said. So far nostalgia has been a big part of that playbook.

While the vehicles are fully modern, they have touches of the past—including the option to have a front-row bench seat, rather than the bucket seating so common in today’s cars. Also, rather than being dominated by digital screens, Scout is incorporating tactile buttons and knobs as part of its user interface.

“Yes, we could have done everything with AI and software, and you wouldn't have to touch a single button,” Keogh said. But research revealed that “Americans feel they're losing control of basic things—like I can turn on the light switch in my house. Well, they're saying that same thing about the car, which is why we kept mechanical switches, and we kept a lot of this tactile-ness because we want people to connect with the car and not disconnect from the car.”