Insight
For the non-car aficionado tires are a low involvement purchase based on performance (practicality, endurance, safety) and price. The challenge was to move Goodyear, a long standing innovator in tire technology, beyond the rational and establish it as more than just a high quality tire brand but as a facilitator and partner of people’s evolving lives.
In 2013 Goodyear partnered with History to develop a campaign that would establish an emotional link with consumers and generate top of mind awareness for the brand. HISTORY developed Kilómetros de Historias (Kilometers of History), a multiplatform campaign supported by PR that engaged viewers and local distributors by focusing on unique inspirational stories where the tire performance was indeed critical.
The campaign became the new image and brand communication for Goodyear in Latin America. In addition to the existing inspirational stories, the campaign went a step further by allowing users to share their own life stories and culminated with Goodyear and History facilitating the next chapter of these stories.
Kilómetros de Historias generated a strong emotional connection with the consumer. The targeted approach and brand association between History and Goodyear provided the ideal environment to develop trust and created a solid bond with the community. In the tire industry, Kilómetros de Historias is the end result of a continued quest to create distinctive and unique concepts that provide a human and emotional side to the brand.
Strategy
Consumer Insight: Consumers believe that all major brands of tires offer the same performance and safety. Many are even unaware of the brand of tires they currently own. As such, price, personal or professional recommendations are the key drivers for purchase decisions.
Goodyear recognised that most people do not give credit to the importance of tires in their everyday lives. The Goodyear/History partnership brought new light to the importance of tires by focusing on inspirational stories where transportation and travel were an integral part of said story. History’s reputation for high quality content helped to add credibility and to engage viewers with the Goodyear campaign.
By listening, sharing and facilitating people’s real life stories and dreams, the partnership not only inspired consumers but also built awareness and loyalty for the Goodyear brand. Consumers and distributors developed an emotional connection with the realisation that Goodyear has and will continue to be a partner that stays with them and continues to help and protect them along the way.
The strategy involved a dynamic user experience based on original content using real contemporary people that endorsed Goodyear through a solid multiplatform campaign. The strategy was to identify stories that leveraged shared values of both the History and the Goodyear brand. To that end, a search across Latin America region for real stories that demonstrated creativity, a powerful message and social responsibility was conducted. This created a strong emotional link that inspired users to participate and engage with the brand.
Kilómetros de Historias is a fully integrated multi-screen experience that maximised engagement, expanded reach, developed real connections and strengthened brand loyalty. To magnify the consumer campaign, Newlink Communication developed a dedicated public relations effort and an internal company program focusing on engaging distributors in the program.
Execution
To build quick awareness, the first stage of the campaign included spots using History talent from top performing franchises telling their personal stories and introducing the Kilometros de Historias programme. It then followed with four real life inspirational stories presented by local History talent Julio Bracho and Fred Melo:
•Two Argentinian women who created Cine a la Intemperie and travel across the country offering outdoor movie documentaries free of charge
•A group of Brazilian artists travelling across the country to bring theater to under priviledged children
•Latin Latas, five Colombians who together play concerts across the country using recicled garbage instruments
•Chimi and Agnes who traveled from Mexico to Ushuaia in a “laboratory” vehicle which transformed used frying oil into fuel.
These stories included a call to action for viewers to share their own stories in the Kilometros de Historias website. Additionally, a Facebook application was developed whereby users could create and share a video of their personal story using their profile information and pictures.
The message was communicated through a variety of vignettes, tune-ins, animated supers and interactive experiences. The campaign was further amplified through press releases, an internal toolkit and a company contest to instill pride and engage internal audiences in the programme.
The campaign culminated with a consumer contest. These real life Kilometros de Historias participant entries were voted on by their peers. Two lucky participants from the 10 finalists selected were awarded the road trip of their lives to continue forging additional kilometres of their history.
Results
• Unprecedented reach of over 50% of the Pay TV Men 25 – 54 demographic using just the targeted effort on the History channel.
• 8 million impressions delivered in the destination page, 7.6 million visits to the site and 4.6 million unique users that stayed, played and shared their stories.
• ATS (Average Time Spent) of 2.35 minutes
• Over 1,400 inspiring videos in our Facebook application.
• $300,000 dollars in press coverage from one of the most popular advertising and media industry print and online publications of Latin America.
• Over 200 Press Clippings throughout the region.
This partnership has been a true journey of success, creating real connections and building true loyalty for both brands along the way.