Summer is upon us and with it comes dreams of the open road. Whether you’re a road trip with the top down and your Spotify playlist blasting kind of driver, or the family piled in the backseat listening to children’s audiobooks, cars do so much more than get us from A to B.
This month’s industry spotlight is all about the automotive sector, with a particular focus on how agencies are working with automotive brands to create clever consumer-facing campaigns. But before we speed through our favorite automotive campaigns, let’s brake and explore how the industry is faring.
Ready to shift gear? Buckle up, it’s time to figure out who’s driving the automotive market and look at some top-tier automotive agency campaigns.
If you don’t know what your customer looks like, how can you craft winning marketing campaigns? Spoiler alert: you can’t. That’s why audience intelligence is a vital part of the campaign planning process, it can unearth all kinds of fascinating insights that can steer your campaign in a whole new direction.
To help us understand who’s driving the automotive market and how car brands can tap into these consumers, we created an affinity report which looked at the overlap of a variety of car brands’ communities, from your everyday reliable four-wheel drives to more luxury options for the UHNWI. We applied this criteria across our wide range of available platforms, including Meta.
So, what can we learn? Our overall automotive audience is chiefly made up of men, who account for an incredible 87% of the audience. Furthermore, around 43% of the total audience is made up of people aged 25 to 34 years old, and 25% between 18 and 24 years old, meaning 68% of the full automotive audience are below the age of 35. In terms of where the audience is based, the UK makes up about 20% of the audience, with the US, India, Germany and France also appearing in the top 5 locations.
While we can make general assumptions about car buyers, your audience is not a monolith. Based on the report, we identified three key segments, which we’ll dig into below.
We’ve assessed the lay of the land, now it’s time to see how modern automotive brands are working with agencies to create exceptional marketing campaigns. And when we say exceptional, we mean more than the standard beautiful car idling among country roads. Let’s see what our brands have got for us today!
First up, a delightful campaign from MINI that featured in our automotive trends showcase. The Electric is Ready to Play campaign, created in partnership with agency JvM SPREE, turned hesitation on its head. A common criticism of EVs is it can be difficult to find public charging points, so MINI organized a stunning light show in Lisbon using public charging points across the city.
When darkness fell on a cold January night, MINI-branded searchlights lit up the sky to emphasize just how many chargers there were across the Portuguese capital. This was broadcast live across the brand’s social channels and supported by a digital OOH campaign to make as much noise as possible.
Cars and clean electricity, a match made in heaven? Apparently so, thanks to agency FamousGrey and their work with Volvo Belgium. According to their research, Belgians who choose to drive an electric or hybrid car do so to lower their carbon emissions and have a positive impact on the planet. But 56% of EV drivers say they don’t actually know where the electricity they use to charge their vehicles comes from.
They engineered a campaign which saw Volvo partner with clean electricity provider Eneco, to offer exclusive discounts for Volvo clients who switched their energy contract. What’s in it for Volvo? EV buyers can enjoy discounted – and most importantly, clean – energy to charge their EVs. The campaign is estimated to have reached 7.5 million Belgians through PR alone and was so successful that Volvo plan to roll out the idea to 26 international markets.
Toyota have clearly heard the news about subscription vehicles being on the rise and have shown their ability to adapt with their latest marketing efforts, Drive To Go. Working with agency Inamoto & Co, Toyota launched their first concept store in Japan, showcasing their new sharing-based car models. According to founder Rei Inamoto, "Owning a car is not the status symbol it once used to be. Nowadays, access is more important than ownership -- especially when it comes to automobiles. So why create a traditional car showroom when the audience purchase habit has changed so much?"
The Drive to Go showroom is a hybrid venue that allows Japanese consumers to rent a car as easily as they might purchase a cup of coffee, which they can also do at the concept store. The goal is to provide an easy way for young drivers to rent a car and everything they need to get away, whether that’s for a weekend mini break or to just drive for the fun of driving. Costs range from 1,000 yen (US$8.82) to rent a vehicle of any size to 14,300 yen (US$126) to rent a minivan for the day.
A campaign that truly thinks outside the box, Ford’s Mach-Eau came from a truly original place. In a survey commissioned by the brand, they found that 1 in 5 drivers said that if they were to make the switch to an electric vehicle, they’d miss the smell of petrol the most. Incredibly, these consumers said they liked the smell of petrol more than wine and cheese, and almost as much as they loved the smell of a new book.
To address this, Ford partnered with fragrance consultancy Olfiction, who helped them to create Mach-Eau, a high-end fragrance that attempted to evoke the feeling by fusing smoky accords with rubber and even a musky ‘animal’ scent to appease even the most die-hard petrol head. Jay Ward of Ford of Europe Product Communications said: “Judging by our survey findings, the sensory appeal of petrol cars is still something drivers are reluctant to give up. The Mach-Eau fragrance is designed to give them a hint of that fuel-fragrance they still crave.”
We’re closing our creative campaign section with another unbelievably imaginative campaign around EVs with this delightful Blue Monday campaign from Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles and agency BBH. As far as Blue Monday marketing goes, this one was actually pretty uplifting. They created an installation, designed to promote their new electric model, which featured a giant SAD lamp billboard.
Stationed near London’s Waterloo station, a universally gray and rainy city, the SAD billboard emitted light that mimics the sun to create mood-lifting effects, providing all-important vitamin D to passing commuters. SAD lamps are known for treating Seasonal Affective Disorder, a type of depression that occurs during times of year when there are reduced levels of daylight. The billboard was powered by 100% renewable energy from Green Voltage UK and invited people to ‘Recharge Here’. Stuart Royall, Creative Director at agency BBH said, "We all miss the sun at this time of year. But by turning a billboard into the world’s largest SAD lamp, we wanted to give passers-by the next best thing. Just like the ID. Buzz itself, with its iconic design and Californian heritage, it’s like a little ray of (electric) sunshine."
Raring to go? Before you go racing off to apply some automotive magic to your own marketing, let’s take a moment to summarize what we’ve learned from MINI, Volvo, Toyota, Ford and Volkswagen.
Ready to take the next step in audience intelligence for your marketing? With tools like Audiense, conducting in-depth audience analysis and discovering actionable takeaways makes creating tailored marketing strategies easier than ever.