May 18, 2017GM was launching a new and updated Chevrolet Trax in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Lebanon in 2017. This launch came at a time where women's empowerment in the region was at an all-time high, as Saudi Arabia had just lifted its decades-old ban on women driving. As a result, this opened up a new share of the market and target audience. In order to increase market share, the car was positioned so as to embody women’s empowerment and appeal to female drivers. However, in a cluttered market where many car brands were seeking the same new target audience, Chevrolet Trax had very little visibility and needed to stand out so as to effectively showcase its new features, reach its target audience and ultimately, drive up sales.
Position Chevrolet TRAX as the literal and figurative vehicle for pioneering women drawing their own paths - inspiring empowerment and ambition. Drive up awareness and engagement, generate test-drives and ultimately, convert them into sales. Showcase the new Chevy Trax features in an authentic and subtle manner via key regional female influencers that are relatable to the target audience and match their ambition.
In a traditionally male driven category, the global movement revolving around women’s empowerment and its resulting echoes in the Arab region was a driving force and a rich contextual space worthy to explore. This of course was further fueled by the landmark move in Saudi Arabia granting women the right to drive and planning less restrictions on travel.
Incidentally, the quest for further liberties and more meaningful experiences brought in a novel necessity for female consumers, namely the need to drive towards a purpose.
This paradigm shift was a golden opportunity to bring to life scenarios that illustrate the novel sense of affinity between woman and car
We leveraged key influencers but not through easy and largely ineffective sales plugs. We recognized that the role of an influencer is not that of a sales person. As the nomenclature implies, it is to influence the target audience
We selected four key women influencers, one from each of our key markets - Mina Al Sheikhly, Zori Ashkanani, Nathalie Fanj and Ohood Al Yami.
We then created an engaging native content format. Each influencer was given the Chevrolet Trax car for a 6-month period.
Each influencer was sent on an adventure in another influencer’s country. The country's host prepared an itinerary for the visiting influencer to explore, discovering the country’s gems in their Chevrolet Trax with focus on local food, a challenge to be performed and finally meet up with a local to give back to the community.
The visiting took their following with them and explored the journey, guided virtually and digitally by the host influencer. As each influencer explored the new country via the Chevrolet Trax, the car was never mentioned by name - instead in became a literal vehicle for the experiences they had and shared.
These co-created experiences between influencers meant that each of their followers and followings spilled-over to each other — and at the same time onto the content we created. We purposely selected the four influencers so at to ensure that each had an approximate 10% audience overlap — meaning their core base would be interested in the other influencers’ content but that each would be exposed to a new audience that increased awareness.
At the same time, each influencer was carefully selected based on their follower spillover with KSA — our market with the highest purchasing power, as well as the country driving interest in women driving.
We created a video format, with each influencer posting four videos. To ensure continuity to the next videos, we re-targeted and re-marketed original viewers with the videos that followed via the official Chevrolet account – using our native content to feed sponsored brand posts in an organic fashion, together with a call to action to book a test-drive. Followers who contacted influencers on the car via direct messages (DMs) received a promo code to use at purchase – a way to bring conversational context to the commerce experience.
For additional authenticity, each influencers kept their Chevrolet Trax for 3 months following the campaign and posted about it in an organic fashion.
The 21 Instagram videos produced – four per influencer – had an average 50% view rate. They received a total of 4.7 million views, 58 million impressions and 4.3 million in total engagement.
Through our engaging content format, we were able to showcase all of the Chevrolet’s USPs without direct advertising - generating interest through an exciting journey. The campaign effectively accrued lead generation and conversion, with 400 cars sold in just 6 months. Each influencer’s own following grew remarkably via the audience spillover, ensuring optimal brand and corporate relationships with the brand and with us as an enterprise.
The campaign and content format effectively positions the car as prime for the adventure-seekers and challenge-takers, riding with the socio-cultural women empowerment wave on-ground through out the region.
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