Genesis, a South Korean car company, marketed its luxury cars to younger generations.
Objective:
In Q4 2020, Genesis set out to redefine luxury for a new generation of car buyers. The brand wanted to establish its new "Young Luxury" platform to put a different spin on luxury while collapsing the purchase funnel by simultaneously building awareness and driving consumers further towards consideration and purchase of their vehicles.
As a new entrant in the luxury car space, Genesis needed a way to break through the cluttered and competitive luxury car category. Genesis and Canvas Worldwide challenged digital media company PadSquad to bring the "Young Luxury" platform to life by developing an engaging mobile-first campaign that would pique interest and drive consideration for the new brand.
The challenge was twofold: to continue to build awareness of this new platform and to drive consumers down the funnel with high-impact creative that engages the audience in premium environments. Campaign success was measured and optimized by measurement of engagements within the creative, as well as click-through rate.
Target Audience:
Genesis started with a baseline of adults between the ages of 25 and 64 that earn at least $100,000 a year. This served as the foundation for which the company would build a targeting strategy to reach individuals that fit the "Young Luxury" mold: e.g., consumers in pursuit of luxurious lifestyles, in-market luxury goods buyers, European auto shoppers, adventurous lifestyle seekers, foodie and culinary adventurers, golf and tennis enthusiasts, and high-end gym visitors.
Creative Strategy:
To truly connect with the "young" adventurous and aspirational audience, Genesis knew it needed to develop a creative and media strategy to find them where they live, in their most personal space, on their phone.
Making an impact on mobile was critical for Genesis results in a higher value prospect for the brand. Research by V12 Automotive Mobile Marketing in 2019 states that 76 percent of mobile-first auto customers know the exact vehicle they want before going to the dealership. Its creative strategy needed to not only introduce the brand, but also to make the car an object of desire.
Luxury can be stiff and cold, but the challenge from Genesis was to build unique creative experiences that make luxury more exciting and fun. The goal was to engage consumers with brand assets and interactivity that highlight key design elements of their vehicles, drawing consumers in with the features they crave.
The result of the brand's creative collaboration was a series of high-impact video formats that brought Genesis vehicles to life while incorporating interactive elements like 360-degree model view and informational hotspots. These rich media units were deployed across relevant mobile content that aligned with the interests of the audience and where they would be most receptive to learning about the "Young Luxury" platform.
Context:
The Genesis "Young Luxury" platform launched in 2020, making this the first campaign for the brand to support the concept of reimagining luxury for a new generation. With 10 years of experience in the automotive category, PadSquad paired historical learnings from the automotive category, while understanding the key campaign KPIs to develop an innovative set of digital creatives that specifically met the challenge presented by Canvas and Genesis. The result was a campaign that beat expectations, exceeded benchmarks, and made a lasting impression on new Genesis consumers.
Overall Campaign Execution:
The Genesis Young Luxury campaign was more than a mobile-first campaign; it was an all-mobile program, where the company narrowly focused on reaching its audience as they were enjoying their passions and the finer things in life.
The company also chose to connect with the Genesis audience on mobile to mirror the richness a Genesis delivers to its customers. This medium allowed Genesis to create a luxury experience via high-impact, scroll-stopping creative that could only be built using the unique technology capabilities mobile has to offer.
In total, the company deployed three different video-rich ad formats using a massive full-screen canvas designed to tell the Genesis story and deliver on the campaign's key metrics. The creative units used a range of engaging video features like 360-degree model views, interactive feature hotspots, and playful product cards which highlighted key vehicle features. Collectively these category-proven interactive elements worked in harmony to stop the scroll, fuel curiosity, and drive performance for the brand.
Mobile Execution:
Mobile sat at the heart of the Genesis campaign from start to finish. Based on audience insights and analysis, this campaign was developed specifically for mobile and a mobile-first audience. Genesis carefully crafted a luxury ad experience for its audience with a deep understanding of how they use their devices, and its expertise in the nuances that come with mobile technology and creative development.
Because of its unique technological capabilities, mobile brings a deeper sense of interactivity and emotion to the table that other marketing channels lack. The "Young Luxury" campaign was uniquely positioned given the combination of its mobile-first audience, and the innovative, emotive technology the company could incorporate into its campaign ad formats.
Genesis was able to tap into native mobile technologies to develop rich, scroll-stopping experiences that introduced the new "Young Luxury" platform and connected deeply with its audience to generate emotion. Through the power of touch and 360-degree motion, mobile enabled Genesis to make luxury fun and approachable to ultimately drive deeper connections with its target audience.
Genesis, a South Korean company, came on the scene as an independent luxury brand and launched its first standalone model in 2017. Facing increased competition in the marketplace from other brands like Tesla, in 2020 Genesis decided to redefine the luxury car experience for a new generation.
The Young Luxury campaign leveraged a variety of rich media video creative designed to drive performance throughout the funnel. Ultimately the campaign performed well for the brand, exceeding expectations across each of the core measurable objectives, and beating benchmarks all around.
As a campaign, the three formats drove 1.3 percent click-through rate (CTR), (400 percent over standard creative benchmarks), 5.32 percent engagement rate (4.0 percent benchmark), and 68.4 percent video completion rate. The formats also averaged time spent up to 27.5 seconds and delivered a total creative exposure time that exceeded the length of the flight by more than 75 times.
Altogether, the campaign successfully delivered against KPIs to meet the objectives of the campaign to continue to drive awareness, and simultaneously pique interest for new luxury. By blending art (rich creative experience) and science (audience insights and targeting), Genesis proved that luxury is accessible and fun.
The results of the campaign indicate that consumers were receptive to the campaign, and to a new idea of what a luxury car experience could look like. Despite volatility in the car market over the last year due to economic uncertainties and supply chain issues, consumers indicated in this campaign that they are still interested in auto shopping and being receptive to new brands in the category.
Particularly for Genesis, this campaign helped position the brand in front of new prospective consumers and stake a claim in the luxury car category amongst some of the more established brands.
