Consumer: Land Rover evokes interest in young

Campaign: Launch of the Range Rover Evoque
Client: Land Rover
PR team: The Brooklyn Brothers
Timescale: July 2010-October 2011
Budget: Less than £2m

In July 2010, Land Rover was preparing to launch the Range Rover Evoque, the smallest, lightest and most fuel-efficient Range Rover produced so far. The car manufacturer asked The Brooklyn Brothers to create a global campaign ahead of the car going on sale in the autumn of 2011.

The challenge was to connect with a younger, urban, design-inspired and environmentally conscious audience - a group that has traditionally rejected the brand.

OBJECTIVES

• To build anticipation for the new Range Rover Evoque

• To connect Range Rover with a new audience

• To drive 20,000 pre-orders before launch.

STRATEGY AND PLAN

The agency decided the target audience would not respond to traditional comms campaigns, so it focused on creating an immersive campaign in which the audience could participate.

To promote a car designed with the city in mind, the agency decided to focus on engaging people living in major cities including London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Milan, Berlin and Shanghai.

It signed up more than 50 influencers from 18 cities to take part in the campaign. The influencers - called City Shapers - ranged from graffiti artists to chefs and were chosen because they were seen as interesting and influential in their cities.

The agency created a 'Pulse of the City' app, which used GPS tracking to record users' journeys within a city. The resulting data was turned into pictures and sent to each user. They could display these on the campaign website Helloevoque.com and social media.

The technology was also used to support City Shapers in their current projects.

For example, the band OK Go and their fans created a huge digital sign of the band's name across the streets of Los Angeles using the app.

In London, the agency worked with fashion designer Henry Holland when he created his spring/summer 'look book' in a series of shoots. When connected, the locations of the shoots across the city drew the House of Holland logo across London on the app.

The agency asked award-winning movie director Nick Gordon to direct a film inspired by the concept of choice. Viewers were able to decide on the main character's actions in different situations, which led to different outcomes (the story had 32 potential endings).

The point of the film was to reinforce subtly the message that the Range Rover Evoque could be personalised in a range of different ways.

MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION

The campaign gained more than 2,000 pieces of media coverage, including the Financial Times' How to Spend It supplement, BBC news and GQ in America.

Results

Eighteen markets across the globe took part in the campaign. There were 32,533 pre-order customer deposits - more than 12,000 above the target.

 

SECOND OPINION - CHRIS HIDES, MANAGING DIRECTOR, M&C SAATCHI PR

The Brooklyn Brothers did a good job. As anyone who has worked on motoring campaigns will testify, success is often measured on the forecourt, not in column inches.

The agency has followed the principle of global campaigns, which is to develop a central creative platform or theme - in this case City Shapers - and then execute it in local markets.

The notion of taking ambassadors from each city that embody the platform, resonate with the target audience and represent the spirit of the product was definitely the smart way to go.

The team is to be congratulated for the LA and London activations - the use of OK Go was spot on given their credibility among the core target consumer, as well as their wider appeal.

Henry Holland's involvement in London was also well put together. There were plenty of references to be found to the tie-up and the team managed to work the product into the partnership.

However, I got the impression that activations in other territories lacked the scale or ambition of those in LA and London.

This article was first published on prweek.com