Title	#PARALLELBARKING
Brand	VAUXHALL
Product/Service	CORSA, WITH ADVANCED PARK ASSIST
Category	C02. Use of Social in a PR campaign
Entrant	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement	CARAT London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR	KAPER London, UNITED KINGDOM
Production	WEBER SHANDWICK London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Danny Whatmough	Weber Shandwick	Head of Social, EMEA
Luke Walker	Weber Shandwick	Creative Head, EMEA
James Nester	Weber Shandwick	Executive Creative Director, EMEA
Nadia Saint	Weber Shandwick	Digital Director
Elizabeth Gladwin	Weber Shandwick	Director of Analytics
Sophia Ratcliffe	Weber Shandwick	Senior Account Manager
Filsan Yusuf	Weber Shandwick	Community Manager
Scott Jackson	Weber Shandwick	Video Lead and Director of Photography
Liam Simpson	Weber Shandwick	Senior Creative Producer
Ben Taylor	Weber Shandwick	Content Producer
Jo Bromilow	Weber Shandwick	Digital Account Director
Magda Wynne	Weber Shandwick	Paid Media Manager
Justine Goldzahl	Weber Shandwick	Digital Assistant Account Executive
Richard Burgess	Vauxhall	Social Media Manager
Karen Standen	Vauxhall	Head of Digital Marketing

The Campaign

We needed a strong, quirky creative idea, tailor-made for a Millennial social media audience who love memes, viral videos and cute animals. So we turned to social listening, looking at the stand-out features of the Corsa in turn, and conversations among new and learner drivers. We discovered that a significant number of first-time drivers were talking about parallel parking: it was their bête noire. They talked about how hard it is, how stressful they found it, and how worried they were about having to parallel park in driving tests. Since Advanced Park Assist means the Corsa can park itself, this was clearly the angle that would resonate most with our young audience. Our idea was to produce a piece of original video demonstrating that the Corsa is incredibly easy to park, however inexperienced a driver you are. Even if, in fact, you are a dog. And so #ParallelBarking was born.

Execution

We put our canine talent, a boxer called Gerty, in the driving seat of a Corsa on a London high street. Using hidden cameras, we filmed her parallel parking the car (or rather, the car parking itself) and the amazed reactions of onlookers. We turned the footage into a 58-second film, #ParallelBarking, and captured shorter pieces of footage, stills and GIFs. A teaser film of a paw pulling the Corsa’s car keys off a table was posted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram a few days before we went live. We launched the hero film across social channels on 21 March, supported with paid media. We shared further content by allowing “Gerty” to take over Vauxhall’s social channels. She became a social star, allowing us to extend the campaign by highlighting other features of the Corsa (eg Apple CarPlay by sharing playlists, and the “bark activated” On-Star system).

This was essentially a branded technology demo, but it exploded on social channels, creating thousands of Gerty fans. A new social media star was born. Reach: •3million video views •One hour after release, the #ParallelBarking video had been watched 100,000+ times •Media pickup included the Daily Mail, Mirror, Express, and TopGear.com. Engagement: •Posts were shared 5,000+ times •Engagement rate of 5.3% (versus target 2.8%) •According to social analysis firm Unmetric, we reached a wider audience with the most shares per social post than competitors such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Citroen, and our engagement score (measuring community response to posts) was higher. •Positive social media sentiment towards Vauxhall increased and negative comments were reduced from 50% to 8%. Conversion: •Click through rate to Corsa page: 4.8% vs. target 2.3% •Traffic arriving from social spent on average five minutes on the site – two minutes more than from search, direct and email.

The Situation

Vauxhall asked us to create a social media campaign showcasing the stand-out features of the new Corsa. Through social listening, we discovered first-time and learner drivers were most worried about parallel parking, so we put Gerty the boxer dog in the driving seat and showed how the Corsa’s Advanced Park Assist feature – unusual in an entry-level car – made the Corsa so easy to park, even a dog could do it. Our “hidden camera” #ParallelBarking video had 3million views. Gerty became a social media star, smashing all engagement and conversion KPIs: it was Vauxhall’s most successful social campaign ever.

The Strategy

Our goal was to drive awareness of the Corsa and its features among younger drivers, and their parents, who often buy the first car. Social sharing is important to this audience, so creating shareable content was a smart way of reaching them. The campaign was grounded in social listening data. Apple CarPlay was the obvious feature of the Corsa to highlight for the smartphone generation, but social listening showed us that parallel parking actually had the most social currency. To make the campaign super-shareable, we combined what people love to hate (parallel parking) with what they love (cute animals). This was true social-first work, perfect for social media planning: it worked as an audio-free, highly visual campaign with a distinctive tone of voice that was unusual for a car brand. We used Vauxhall’s Twitter, Facebook and Instagram channels, with paid support. Vauxhall’s PR agency handled media sell-in.