2019 Winners & Shortlists

CADILLAC DESIGN

Short List
BrandCADILLAC
Product/ServiceCADILLAC
EntrantINTERESTING TIMES Beirut, LEBANON
CategoryInnovative Use of Social or Community
Idea Creation INTERESTING TIMES Beirut, LEBANON

Background.

For Saudis, Ramadan is the equivalent of Christmas. For cars, it is the sales season during which all brands compete with offers. The problem is that all offers became the same with no differentiation. The brief was to create a campaign right before Ramadan to increase interest in the brand in order for the offers to work better since they were the same as last year. The campaign was to communicate Cadillac’s design philosophy because design is the key driver for consideration. The objective was to increase sales by 5% despite tough economic conditions.

Describe the creative idea.

“A camel is a horse designed by committee.” Sir Alexander Issigonis Cadillac with its unique, bold and edgy design language can be polarizing. This is something we wanted to use to our advantage; at the end of the day, great design and the courage to drive the world forward was never decided by popular vote. Our idea is to reflect that polarization towards design and taste by emphasizing that design is not a democracy. Ironically, we used social media where people voice their opinion the most, in order to make our point.

Describe the strategy.

We reached out to those who have favorable opinions about the brand. We wanted to glorify their taste and image as people who don’t follow the masses and have strong appreciation towards bold daring design. We also wanted to reach a younger audience that doesn’t want to conform to old rules. Cadillac’s bold design can be polarizing. Design is emotional and can be subject to communication, brand power and social pressure. Therefore, our first aspect of the strategy was to intensify the opinions about the brand driving consideration for sales. We wanted to be bold and daring exactly like our design and brand ethos ‘Dare Greatly’. Social media platforms were launching a number of features that allowed users to share their opinions and increase their engagement – a feature that people loved. This was our opportunity to use these channels to reflect our story that design is not a democracy.

Describe the execution.

We launched a series of films on our social media platforms talking about our bold design and polarizing people, and featuring a number of local influencers who are themselves edgy and bold in their style. At the same time, we used dark ads, that give the illusion of democracy, by asking people for their opinion, but without actually letting them give it, to reveal that design is not a democracy. We used several engagement features such as ‘polls’, ‘ask me a question’, and ‘the rating feature’. Our dark posts videos contained messages such as, ‘We value people’s feedback but our cars are not designed by popular opinion’. Those who have seen the ads were served promotional offers 15 days later during the month of Ramadan. The Design campaign ran from April 17th until June 30th. The Ramadan campaign ran from May 15th until June 30th.

List the results.

Those who saw the design ad had a 9% of CTR on the Ramadan offer, versus 1% among those who didn’t see the design ad but clicked on the offer. - 43K unique visits on the website and 7 million engagement through earned media - 36% positive sentiment, a 14% increase comparing to previous months - Only 6% negative sentiment Most importantly, there was an increase of 32% in sales versus the year before.

Credits

Name Company Role
Mo Alghossein Interesting Times Creative Partner
Rita Harbie Interesting Times Associate Creative Director
Jessica Chaker Interesting Times Art Director
Ashraf Mansour Interesting Times Planning Partner
Chafic Al Kowatly Interesting Times Account Director
Lea Maalouli Interesting Times Account Manager
Black Rhino Black Rhino Production House
Michel Harb Black Rhino Executive Producer
Chadi Younes Chadi Younes Director
Volker Schellbach Volker Schellbach DOP
Links
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