LeasePlanGo’s launch into the B2C market

Posted on: November 17, 2015 Download

LeasePlan Go were a new to TV B2C brand on a limited budget
They developed a ‘symbiotic’ media buying strategy, by placing the rational LeasePlan Go ad in the same break following emotive premium car ads
As a result, they enjoyed a substantial rise in awareness, an increase in brand engagement and a drive in web visits

Challenge

Despite being the global leaders in the large B2B car leasing market, LeasePlan were yet to penetrate the comparatively small B2C market, which remained relatively untapped in the UK. So they decided to launch a dedicated B2C brand, LeasePlan Go, into the market in October 2014. However, this was made more challenging by the fact that consumer awareness of car leasing was very low and the advertising of general car brands was massive.

The huge amount of noise generated in the general car market meant that LeasePlan Go’s limited ad spend would have to work hard to gain cut through.

In order to take advantage of this untapped opportunity and also to take the brand to the next level in terms of mass growth, their key objectives were to

raise awareness of the LeasePlan Go brand
increase brand engagement
drive web interest
achieve all of the above on a launch budget of £350,000.

The Solution

Quantitative and qualitative research showed that, though their target audience aspired to drive a great car, they were not really aware of car leasing - a convenient and attainable option. This conclusion developed a clear focus for their advertising strategy and proved that, with the right approach, LeasePlan could be successful in the B2C market.

Another key insight was that car advertising tended to be very emotive. It is emotional messaging that drives the majority of sales within typical automotive advertising. This contrasted with the more rational tone in LeasePlan’s message of simplicity, convenience and safety. Leaseplan decided to feed off this emotional and aspirational engagement generated by the automotive category.

TV’s power to increase an audience’s emotional engagement ensured its position at the centre of their campaign. TV spots were to be carefully considered, with regards to both the types of programmes targeted and in ensuring the LeasePlan Go advert followed after quality motors spots within the advertising break. This innovative “symbiotic” strategy allowed LeasePlan to ride off the positive emotions generated by quality motors advertising, by hitting the consumer with a more rational follow up message showcasing the attainability of car leasing.

The Plan

In order to implement this “symbiotic” strategy, LeasePlan’s media agency adconnection worked with the broadcasters’ sales houses so the campaign was able to follow quality car advertising eg. BMW and Jaguar, within ad breaks. The likelihood of appearing after a motors TV ad was increased by cross referencing motor TV advertising patterns with the consumption patterns of their target audience (Men, ABC1, aged 25-50). A plan was built that upweighted airtime on evenings across the week with a particular focus on Sunday nights.

An example of this strategy in action was the use of a centre break in the popular Channel 4 Sunday night show Homeland. Not only would this programme provide instant coverage and gains in brand stature, but, because adconnection were working with the broadcasters, they managed to place their ‘rational’ LeasePlanGo TV advert immediately after an ‘emotional’ Jaguar ad featuring Ben Kingsley. Other key environments included a Sky Sports football match between Barcelona v Ajax, an episode of Top Gear, an episode of Speed with Guy Martin, and the film Rambo: First Blood.

The campaign was initially concentrated into a 2 week burst to maximise impact, coverage & frequency against their target market. As LeasePlan Go were new to TV and product awareness was low, adconnection surmised that the effective frequency level should be four.

With TV engaging their audience and driving awareness and consideration, they also underpinned the campaign with digital activity around the spots to link people to the point of sale. The display impressions were bought 15 minutes around the TV spots to increase the likelihood of people seeing both the TV ad and an online display ad, thus increasing brand recall.

Results

LeasePlan saw a 100% increase in spontaneous awareness
Prompted brand awareness was up 29%
45% of their target audience saw the ad at least once, whilst 10% saw it three times
The LeasePlanGo ads that followed aspirational car ads generated a 51% higher response rate than those that didn’t
LeasePlan Go delivered 41% of their key impacts in breaks following a car ad and 17.5% in breaks immediately after a car ad
LeasePlan Go had 5,663 enquiries during the campaign
The response rate was 0.573%
There were 35,000 web visits on launch day and over 300,000 visits over a 4 week period (over 21 times the amount of visits the site would normally have received across a month)

In addition, the campaign was a finalist in the TV Planning Awards Best Newcomer to TV category

Since winning the business, adconnection have worked very closely with us from creative concept to detailed analysis. We could not have hoped for a better partner on our business. They were fully immersed in our business and really understood our market challenges.
They coupled this with excellent market knowledge especially on the potential within TV, to develop a highly innovative strategy. They really persuaded us of the power of TV and the symbiotic solution delivered real value to our business to over-deliver in terms of results.

Simon Carr, Brand Director