Dacia realized that focusing in consumer communication on low price cars was not differentiating enough from the competition. Especially, since in 2012, despite the economical crisis in Italy, Dacia’s market share stagnated. That’s why Dacia has decided to become a value for money brand instead.
Challenge: To position Dacia as a value for money brand by focusing on Dacia’s range of commercial vehicles making use of Dacia’s Udinese football sponsoring.
Primary objective: To help small business owners financially in times of crisis and thus demonstrate that Dacia cares for its consumers and their needs.
Secondary objective: To create higher brand affinity and to increase purchase intention
Strategy: To provide small business owners in need with something they could never afford.
Execution: Dacia Sponsor Day – an online contest in which 3 small business owners could win to have their company name appear on Udinese’s football shirts during an official Serie A league game.
Outcome:
• Over 4.000 participants
• Nearly 7 million people watched the matches
• 95% of national TV and press covered Dacia Sponsor Day on over 700 news stories
• 4.053 Dacia cars have been ordered in less than 3 weeks
The Brief
Primary goal was to help small business owners in times of the economical crisis and thus demonstrate that Dacia cares for its consumers and their needs. It is in these times that people are most loyal to brands that offer them something useful.
Secondary goal was to create higher brand affinity and to increase purchase intention amongst a target audience that is very fickle and usually only buys the best price offerings.
Results
The initiative generated a number of car orders 10 times higher than company had estimated.
The Dacia Sponsor Day achieved an extremely high media reach, with more than 122 million views in two and a half months:
Media Coverage:
- More than 130 pieces of coverage on national and local newspapers and magazines
- More than 140 pieces of coverage on national and local TV & radio
- More than 480 pieces of online coverage
Social Media (the contest spanned three weeks):
- 4.273 companies entered the contest
- Dacia Facebook fan base: +52%
- Dacia Twitter Followers: +30%
- 35.768 Facebook access
- Total Facebook fans: 13.446
- Total Twitter followers: 3.521
- Interactions (FB + twitter): 2.329
- Tweet with #SponsorDays: 1.521
- Impressions #SponsorDays: 3.012.179
- 728.956 youtube hits
- #Sponsordays in Italy’s top 4 trending topics
Execution
1st – Teaser: two weeks before the launch, the brand activation was introduced to the press by a teaser email to journalists, announcing that something special would happen on Udinese’s jersey. This email has been followed up by a press conference, in which the activation was announced to the press, two days prior to the official launch to national audiences by means of a teaser video.
2nd – Launch: Dacia Sponsor Day was officially launched on Udinese’s and Dacia’s social channels and was supported by a promo video, a display campaign, FB ads, POS materials and PR activities.
The online contest itself was placed on a dedicated mini site and a tab on Dacia’s Facebook page.
3rd – Match day: Dacia Sponsor Day was officially launched in front of a 7 million football audience, where it was the PR center piece of all match day communication in press and TV.
The Situation
Dacia stopped growing in the same way as in recent years, despite the economical crisis in Italy. Especially 2012 has proven that its low cost strategy was not differentiating enough from the competition. As a result, Dacia decided to reposition itself as a value for money brand that is close to its customer’s needs. To launch this new positioning, Dacia wanted to target small business owners that are affected the most by the economical crisis. But since Dacia had very little budget to spend, they wanted to make use of their ongoing Udinese football sponsoring and rely heavily on PR.
The Strategy
The campaign took advantage of the high level of football exposure in Italy in order to increase the visibility of the story and brand talk-ability. Dacia’s Udinese football sponsorship made a media space, usually significant only for the brand, also relevant for consumers.
Dacia Sponsor Day provided 3 small business owners in need with something they could never afford: A Serie A sponsorship appearance on Udinese’s football jerseys during an official league game. An advertising exposure no small business could ever dream of. And given that this was set within the holy grail of football, huge PR response for both Dacia and the small business owners was guaranteed.