Agency sends a busload of 41 people to car dealers
By Toni Fitzgerald May 28, 2009
It’s all well and good to cite numbers when trying to make a case for your product, as in, “Forty-one people visit our web site each minute.” But it’s much more effective to give a visual reminder of what those 41 people could mean.
That was the idea behind a recent alternative campaign that ran in the Netherlands.
AutoTrader.nl, an online used-car marketplace, was having trouble convincing local car dealers to advertise on their site.
It went to its agency, Houdini Amsterdam, with these marching orders: Come up with a campaign that persuades dealers that they're missing out on loads of potential customers by not advertising with us.
Recalls Wilbert Leering, creative director at Houdini: “We looked at the amount of visitors every day (60,000 people), every hour (2,460 people), every minute (41 people), and asked ourselves: Why don't dealers advertise their used cars on Auto Trader if you have that amount of visitors?
“Maybe they have no idea that they miss out on 41 potential car buyers every minute.”
How do you show that?
Simple. The agency rounded up 41 people, put them on a bus, and drove to 15 dealerships in 15 cities across the country, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Apeldoorn and Utrecht.
At each one, the bus riders descended and clustered around a car, providing a visual reminder to dealers that they could be connecting with 41 more buyers per minute if they used Auto Trader.
The message was straightforward, as is the web site itself.
“It's a very factual and very clear web site. You choose a car and you get the data you want straight away,” Leering says. “This uprightness is also in the stunt we pulled -- the plain facts only presented in a more convincing way.”
Houdini filmed footage of the stunt, which it used in a direct email campaign to other dealers. The total cost was minimal.
“We used DVD-cams, 41 people, a touring bus, a presenter and no approval ... it would have ruined the surprise a bit,” Leering says. “Almost every single dealer in the Netherlands saw the footage we shot during the visits. And they did the math as well.”
Following the campaign, which ran last month, the Auto Trader sales department saw a 75 percent increase in contracts compared to the same time last year.
Plus it built some goodwill: “All the car dealers really appreciated the fact that we spiced up their slow Tuesday morning,” Leering says.
