From a marketing perspective, Audi is having a strong first half of 2013. They started with this spectacular Super Bowl Spot, which I also covered in my Super Bowl Advertising Roundup.

As you can see, this spot is really strong advertising, very well executed, and by most accounts, very well received. Kudos to the team at Venables Bell & Partners for 60 seconds of fine storytelling, excellently produced.

What I really admire is the borrowed equity. Audi uses the (classic) high school prom and all its teenage-I-don’t-really-fit-in-and-I’m-secretly-in-love-with-that-girl angst as the thrust agent to propel the underlying storyline. There’s so much being said, without actually being said, that provides backdrop and motivation to the spot. In virtually any other scenario, you’d have to spend a lot of valuable airtime to establish that emotional context. Borrow some “prom” equity, and it’s built in. Smart.

Now, Audi releases another gem, a viral video called “The Challenge.” It’s a two minute and 44 second short featuring Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy. For the four of you who can’t make that connection, they both share the role of Spock from the Star Trek fiction series, and this video is released just weeks before the next installment of the blockbuster film franchise “Into Darkness” is released nationwide. [Interestingly, and clearly not coincidentally, Audi is NOT the “official auto partner” of Star Trek. It’s Mazda. And they’ve gotta be pissed over there in Anaheim.] Take a look.

Again, aside from the fact that this is a really good piece of content, with a couple of really good laughs around the old man vs young turk struggle, it’s the Trekkie/Nimoy references buried in the action, the Star-Trek-ism of it all that fuels the comedic undertone. It’s geeky, and quirky, and you’re almost waiting for Sheldon from “Big Bang Theory” to make a cameo. By the way, did you notice that shameless kick in the crotch that Audi levels on Mercedes-Benz? OUCH.

In the short, there are plenty of jokes, and Nimoy even reprises his old Bilbo Baggins vocalizing as part of it. It’s camp. It’s fun. It’s for FANS. It’s content dissemination that’s approaching four million views as of this writing. Yeah. FOUR MILLION.

In both cases, Audi was smart and crafty enough to pull some strong messaging together and dress it up with sexy shots of the latest A7 vehicle. But they go a step further and deliver those messages to consumers in powerful emotional packages that ALREADY have trust and memory and gravity built in. It is indeed “fascinating,” and I, for one, can’t wait to see what they do the rest of this year.

Live long and prosper.

[This article first appeared on Technorati.]