FORD of TURKEY

Ford Focus Social Media Campaign‘Focuslayan Kazansın’

"Ford is more than just a car company, we're also a technology company."

Alan Mulally

In 2011, Ford renewed its global brand positioning as being a technology brand instead of just being an automobile manufacturer.

According to this new vision, Ford defined its product strategy as ‘delivering newest technologies’ to a wider consumer group.

Background

New Ford Focus that was planned to be launched in May, would be the first model with which Ford accomplished its progressive technology.

New Ford Focus that is equipped with a revolutionary new class of smart technologies,can trail the mass after the brand and also can change the technology perception in positive manner related ‘Ford’ brand.

Background

When considering the perspectives of Turkey market, the launch of the New Ford Focus was quite important for Ford Otosan. Focus had been the primary model since many years. However, Focus has needed the innovations to compete with its competitors and to remind its value again in the segment.

The New Ford Focus satisfies the expectations enormously. All we need to do was just to explain the superior technologies of New Ford Focus to the target group.

Background

ATL creatives to be localised, were emphasizing the three major features of New Ford Focus.

According to market research results, 74% of Turkish customers aren’t interested in the features of the vehicles.

It was hard to attract attention for some of the New Ford Focus’ technologies which are complicate and need explanations, via TV commercials & printed media.

Background

*Source: http://blog.microsoft.com.tr/otomotiv-sektoru-ve-dijital-pazarlama.html

Creative Challange:

How can the features of the New Ford Focus be driven to communication for attracting more attention of Turkish customers?

According to potential customers’ profile research, their internet usage proportion is very high and spend their most of time especially at social media.

To indicate the features effectively, it is needed to create content that is appropriate for Social Media dynamics and create an effective dialog with potential customers to take a place at their daily agenda.

*Source: GfK Customer Profile Research 2011

Background

We defined our objectives as:  

To explain the technological features of the New Ford Focus attractively to the target group who frequently spend time at social media.

To break the distant attitude of the brand and to bring it closer to its target group by creating an entertaining platform in social media.

Communication Objectives

Creative Approach

Determined in line with campaign objectives; we had positioned the smart technologies of the New Ford Focus as the ‘most desirable technologies’ among potential customers.

By using a sincere and entertaining communication tone, we can add an ‘emotion’ perspective on top of the rational communication that takes place in offline communication and can take the attention of users.

We selected Facebook as the communication channel, because of the high usage rate by the target group. Within the facebook application which is named as “Focuslayan Kazansın!”*, we created a competition among the three teams that are formed by well-known celebrities.

Focuslayan Kazansın Creative Approach

*: The name of the project has been selected specifically. The double meaning of Focus and «to Focus» has been used. Focuslayan Kazansın The One Who Focuses Will Win.

While choosing the celebrities, we particularly paid attention to contact with the ones who are from comedy sector. We determined the team members through the celebrities from cinema, comedy magazines, TV and radio sectors. The other point that we paid attention, was that the selected celebrities should use the internet actively and have a significant amount of fan at online channels.

After the careful evoluation, we determined our teams as Murat Akkoyunlu (actor) & Eylem Yıldız (actress), Kaan Sezyum (author) & Serkan Altuniğne (caricaturist), and the comedian duo which is known as Cenk&Erdem.

Focuslayan Kazansın Creative Approach

While preparing the fiction of the competition, we planned to give six smart technologies of the New Ford Focus as a duty to the teams for each of the six weeks.

Teams tried to implement the following features of the New Ford Focus; - Active Park Assist- Bluetooth & Voice Control- EcoBoost Engine- Automatic wipers with rain sensor- Torque Vectoring Control - Active City Stoprespectively to the legendary models of Ford from 1970s that are given to celebrities to drive during project.

Each week involved 3 videos and they were the keystones of the competition;- The mission video by Serdar Bostancı (the old champion rally pilot and the

team director of Castrol Ford Team Turkey) to explain the mission of the week- The preparation video to show the preparations of the teams that is published

at the middle of the week- The final video showing teams’ performances

Focuslayan Kazansın Creative Approach

The winning team had been determined by the votes of fans at Facebook. Users had registered to the facebook application then supported their teams. And of course, at the end of this competition, fans who met with the smart technologies of the New Ford Focus and supported the teams, should approach one step closer to drive New Ford Focus.

Within supporting the teams, fans have a right to participate to lottery of winning New Ford Focus, for each of their support.

Focuslayan Kazansın Creative Approach

Twitter accounts were created for the teams. Team members tweeted their ideas and experiences.

Among supporters of week’s winning team, 5 were selected to visit the set and meet celebrities each week.

We included popular bloggers into the teams to create and spread more content.

Focuslayan Kazansın Creative Approach

Media Strategy

To increase the spreading of the campaign among users, we had decided to drive integrated offline & online communications.

Digital media communication was driven at the channels which had high usage rates by potential customers. Within using the channels that are websites related sport, automobile & man basis alongside with technology, the optimum cost was provided at the launch period of application. The campaign plan is flourished via using special channel projects and Facebook ads engagement.

Banner campaign which was providing to increase the awareness of the facebook application that was “Focuslayan Kazansın!”, obtained 148.190 clicks and provided 5.58% CTR.

Media Strategy

Focuslayan Kazansın – Banner example

Focuslayan Kazansın – Special Projects

To spread the strong impression of the “Focuslayan Kazansın!” project which was gained at online media and to target mass communication, we determined to use TV and newspaper channels. A content focused media plan was devised employing magazine and entertainment shows matching the application content.

Appropriate contents are indicated at major TV channels also with thematic TV channels and related newspapers’ weekend supplements.

65% of our target customers (2.900.000 people) watched our ad at least once. The ones, who saw the ad, watched the film with an average rating of 3,3

Newspaper wise, we focused on weekend additions of major papers related to our content. 33% of our target customers (1.450.000 people) ran into our advert at least once on newspapers and in average, our adverts were viewed 2 times by our target customers.

Media Strategy

Voice Control10’’ Ecoboost10’’ Active Park Assist 10’’

Focuslayan Kazansın - TVCs

Focuslayan Kazansın - Prints The aim on print creative was to make people excited about the project

So teasing type tone has been selected with following creatives

Who is the celebrity that hooks a hookah to his exhaust?

Who is the celebrity that puts a couch on his car?

Campaign Results

The number of fans of Ford Turkey’s Facebook page increased 5 times and reached 40.000.

Campaign Results

14.700 people signed up to the application and 21.000 “votes” given by the participants

Active monthly users increased 10 times and reached to 155.634 users.

Campaign Results

Among all the content, Focuslayan Kazansın has reached the highest interaction among all content that was published in Facebook Ford Page

Campaign Results

Total Likes: 1.336Total Comments: 992Total Impressions:1.113.307

Focus’layan Kazansın!” awarded as “ The Most Popular Social Media Campaign”

Campaign Results

The contest got mentioned by the most popular automobile blogs alongside non-automobile related blogs very often.

Campaign Results

A huge buzz created in both online and offline media

Campaign Results

The videos published each week, spread through Facebook, blogs and automotive based websites. Total video view reached to 1.984.287

Campaign Results

Fake news website Zaytung, which is being followed by most of the youth, mentioned the project. This fake news wasn’t percieved as an ad by the users, which proved how embraced was the project.

Campaign Results

We created an emotional bond with the consumer by communicating the technological features of New Focus in an entertaining tone.

We created permanent content for New Focus on the digital world.

We accomplished to create a close dialogue with the consumer, clearing off technic and didactic expressions.

We created ever existing, constant content for the New Focus in the digital world.

What We’ve Achieved

We made sure of Ford’s fast, strong and lasting entry to social channels.

We wanted to be known as a contest apart from an advertising campaign. This way we managed the consumer to take part in the project by himself.

We broke a new ground in Turkish automotive sector by introducing features of the car in an entertaining way to a community that has 74 percentage rate of having no interest in technical features.

What We’ve Achieved