A lot of the time, it's not about the volume of the coverage that you generate for your campaign, it's about the depth of messaging that you convey. The launch of Fiat's eco:Drive ticked that box big time, in my humble ...
We read about the new eco:Drive system in Contagious Magazine and thought at the time that it was an interesting thing because it was created by a marketing agency but goes to the heart of both product and brand.
In their words:
eco:Drive is a downloadable widget that can be transferred onto a USB stick and plugged into Fiat’s Blue&Me technology (a USB port on the dashboard).
The software then evaluates your driving and marks it out of 100. Tutorials then encourage drivers to improve their driving, their score and ultimately, reduce their carbon emissions.
The clever bods at AKQA have taken all the favourite bits from Nike+ and worked them into their cars which we think is pure genius.
Clever, huh?
So, to launch the service, the team pulled a bit of a PR blinder. They partnered with the AA to enter a Fiat 500 equipped with eco:Drive into the MPG Marathon: a 400 mile race in which the winner is the motorist who drives most efficiently and has the lowest MPG. Then they popped AA CEO, Edmund King into the motor in question.
The clever bit was popping the BBC's travel corrie, Tom Symonds into a similarly-equipped car.
So it was that on day one of the campaign, Tom was featured on Breakfast (and pretty much every other rolling news outlet) taking a lesson in fuel-efficient driving alongside an AA instructor (nice plug for the driving school).
But then, on each news outlet through the day for two days (day one here and day two here), Tom was featured driving his motor and giving updates on how he was getting on: how his driving style had changed and what impact that was having on both the eco-friendliness and cost of his motoring.
Which is just the kind of exposure Fiat needed, really. Cracking work, guys.
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