| Title | BUILT FOR BELGIAN ROADS |
| Brand | MITSUBISHI |
| Product/Service | SUV'S |
| Category |
B01. Challenger Brand Strategy |
|
Entrant
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LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
|
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Idea Creation
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LDV UNITED Antwerp, BELGIUM
|
|
Media Placement
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INITIATIVE MEDIA Hoeilaart, BELGIUM
|
|
Media Placement 2
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MEDIA*A Auderghem, BELGIUM
|
|
PR
|
OONA BENELUX Antwerp, BELGIUM
|
Credits
| Dennis Vandewalle |
LDV United |
Creative Director |
| Dries De bruyn |
LDV United |
Creative Director |
| Jannis Min Jou |
LDV United |
Art Director |
| Thomas De Boeck |
LDV United |
Copywriter |
| Dimitri Mundorff |
LDV United |
Client Services Director |
| Julie Oostvogels |
LDV United |
Account Director |
| Ineke Beeckmans |
LDV United |
Account Manager |
| Innie Tran |
LDV United |
Account Manager |
| Pieter Van Schil |
LDV United |
Account Executive |
| Julie Vanderbeck |
LD United |
Art Director |
| Matthew Lootens |
LDV United |
Copywriter |
| Jef Raeman |
LDV United |
Strategy Director |
| Jeffrey Uten |
LDV United |
Design Director |
Summary
The competition in the Belgian SUV sector is fierce. Mitsubishi is unknown and therefore unloved. The new positioning of Mitsubishi 'unbreakable' provided a distinctive story for the brand. But how could we make the story relevant to potential Belgian SUV buyers in order to raise brand awareness and boost sales? We needed to do this in a hyper competitive market with competitors that have massive budgets.
Potential SUV buyers with no brand preference are looking for the best price/quality.
We found out that our Belgian roads are even worse than in Rwanda. According to the World Economic Forum we have 62.700 km of bad roads. (Executive Opinion Survey , 2018, Belgium. consulted on 11/11/2018, http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index-2017-2018/countryeconomy-profiles/#economy=BEL). A recognizable insight for many Belgians.
That’s why we used the poor quality of our roads to promote Mitsubishi’s solid SUV’s. The campaign idea, ‘built for Belgian roads’, was a relevant claim.
We chose to always show our cars in a realistic environment while focusing on the most relevant media: when you’re behind the wheel experiencing the bad Belgian roads.
First, we made geo-targeted outdoor. On social media we also geo-targeted the bad roads and adapted the tagline to the name of the street in question. We launched a social video to promote our ‘motor show conditions based on the road condition’. Our bad roads costs us a lot of money. So, we gave discounts to compensate for the average costs.
Following, we hijacked ‘Waze’ to mark the most dangerous potholes and cracks in the road around the Brussels Motor show to warn others of the danger they were approaching. We added the note ‘Do you drive a Mitsubishi? Then you can ignore this notification’.
Then, in our national radio campaign, we captured the attention by making use of the typical noises you hear while driving on bad roads.
Afterwards, we promoted our immediately available stockcars. The potholes in our Belgian roads won’t be repaired overnight. But luckily a solid Mitsubishi SUV can be yours overnight. We let our stockdeals continue as long as the holes in our road remained open. Or at least: one exemplary hole. The hole could be viewed 24/7 via a livestream. Our claim was ‘Is the pothole still open? Then our stockdeals will continue to run.’ We posted the (lack of) progress on social media to let people know the hole was still open and our deals were still available.
We even made a book dedicated to bad Belgian roads. Because when you drive the right car, there is beauty in each little crack.
To see if we met our objectives, we measured the impact of our communication. During our first peak (the Brussels Motor show), we had 19% more requested quotes in comparison to the same period last year. At the end of our campaign (May), we had 30% more requested quotes compared to last year. It resulted in a 17% growth of Mitsubishi’s market share during the Brussels Motor Show, while the market declined by 6%.
Please tell us about the challenger brand and how your campaign challenged / was different from your competitors
Mitsubishi is an unknown and therefore unloved brand in the SUV-segment were the competition is fierce. But it’s a challenger with a no-nonsense attitude. We needed to let people know that our new positioning was ‘unbreakable’ and stand out with a small budget in a highly competitive market.
Potential SUV buyers with no brand preference are looking for the best price/quality.
Competitors often use campaigns filled with beautiful and perfect roads. In reality, Belgian roads are filled with potholes and cracks. Fortunately for Mitsubishi, that poor quality was perfect to promote our solid SUVs as the best price/quality.
We chose to always show our cars in a realistic environment while focusing on the most relevant media: when you’re behind the wheel experiencing the Belgian roads. Compared to other SUV brands, we embraced the reality of our poor roadconditions to show that Mitsubishi has the perfect cars to tame those roads.