Question: How do you write 300 words about a campaign so pleasingly logical that it really doesn’t require much of an explanation? Answer: I’m not too sure. Once I outline its essentials, you see, job done. I’m tempted to write ‘It. Speaks. For. Itself. Trust me, it’s great. Look it up on YouTube’. But I’ve committed to writing a review, so here goes.
On a banner-sized budget, Nissan, in Dubai, needed to boost test drives at a time when test drives and new car purchases are at an all-time low. So – get this – they reached out to new expats. Genius! New expats are the only group of people who, recession or not, are pretty much guaranteed to be actively looking for a new home and new car.
Next clever step involved teaming up with a very popular house-hunting site to create ‘The HouseHunter Test-Drive’. HouseHunter took all the useful bits of information from a person’s house-search criteria – such as type of home, budget, neighbourhood and family size – and used it to select for that person the ideal Nissan. New expats could even arrange to get picked up by the Nissan that matched their lifestyle and go for a test drive – on the way to see their new home.
And did all this smart, commonsensical tailoring work? Of course it did. In just three weeks, The HouseHunter Test-Drive generated over 1,200 test drives across seven models. They made themselves relevant by literally shaking newcomers by the hand and making them feel welcome.
This campaign is intelligent, resourceful and one would imagine relatively easy to implement. Once in place, it has the potential to keep on generating leads. And the bright-eyed agency responsible? TBWA RAAD. I salute you. (That’s almost 300 words. Now go look up the campaign.)
Mark Smith is managing partner at Table 19
