VolkswagenAudiEspaa:AScoreofComposingYourLife Direct Marketing Association - US

Gold, ECHO Awards, 2010

VolkswagenAudiEspaa:AScoreofComposingYourLife

CP Proximity

ENTRY INFORMATION

Category: Automotive

Country where program ran: Spain

Date program started/ended: 2009

Product Description: Audi. A premium brand in the automotive market, characterized by always being "At the vanguard of

technical innovation".

Advertiser/Client Name:VolkswagenAudiEspaaSA

Media Channels:

Website: http://www.thisismywork.com/echo/score

STRATEGY

Marketplace Challenge:

Audi has a customer loyalty program since 1999: the Audi Class Program. This program lasts between 7 and 10 years

(depending on the model one purchases) and includes a variety of exclusive services and advantages for the brands clients and a communications plan aimed at them as well.

The key to the success of all customer loyalty programs is having an extensive, updated and thorough Database, in order to

be constantly informed about each clients specific needs and have the capacity to respond to them as quickly and as well as possible.

However, Audi was facing a slowly decreasing ratio of questionnaire forms being filled out, since clients didnt see why they should provide their data and what they could gain by doing so. As a consequence, the quality of the brands Database was decreasing.

How to turn this situation around and increase the rate of updated data?

Title: VolkswagenAudiEspaa:AScoreofComposingYourLifeSource: Direct Marketing Association - USIssue: Gold, ECHO Awards, 2010

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Target audience: Consumer

The whole Audi Class database, including those people who are registered online (with e-mail) as well as those who are

registered offline (those from whom we only know their physical address). A very heterogeneous group of clients of very

different ages and who find themselves at different stages of their lives (young single students, married professionals with

children, retirees). They are mostly men (85%), between 30 and 60 years of age, with a higher education degree and of middle/upper-middle socioeconomic status, who own vehicles from very different segments (from an A3 to an A8).

However, they all have something in common: their trust in a premium brand and their demand of having their rational and

emotional expectations met.

Size of target audience: 50,000999,999

Marketing strategy:

Audi decided to launch a data update action that was notorious and relevant to its clients, and to that end focused on

developing a communication that would prove by itself that providing their data is good for something more than sending

commercial communications. The communication had to boost in an attractive way the collection of that data we still didnt have from our clients with the aim of expanding and improving the quality of the brands Database.

Although the communications tone was crucial to reach and move our target audience, we couldnt lose sight of the fact that as soon as we sent it, it would also have a direct influence on the actions result. For this reason, it was decided to have it take place on a key CRM day: each clients birthday.

The action became the annual birthday greeting, which is the communication from the Audi Class program clients value the

most and is among those which most contribute to strengthening the bond between them and the brand.

Marketing tactics:

A campaign was developed which proved that the data the client had provided to the brand throughout his life made it possible

for Audi to know him well enough to write, exclusively for him, a unique and personal melody.

And, why not create an e-mail showing that by itself? Audi decided to stand out and make a greater personalisation to proof

clients, at a glance, that provide personal data to the brand is also useful for them.

Each client received an e-mailing in which the brand congratulated him and invited him to visit the website to discover his

birthday present: a personalized melody based on his own history. To access the website it was mandatory to provide, among

other data, your e-mail address, and in this way, a lot of offline clients became online contacts.

CREATIVE

Creative strategy

Every client got an e-mailing with the score of his/her own personal song. Who would not click on an e-mail with the score of a

musical composition specially made for him/her?

200.000 unique and personal e-mails for 200.000 clients were created.

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ButHow were these personalized melodies created? When the client accessed the website, the data he had just provided, together with those we already had (interests, location, Audi model, age, etc), was retrieved through his ID. This data was

turned into variables. Each variable was assigned, musical notes that, when combined, made up a unique song for each user.

Then, we got the score from these compositions and draw it on 200.000 e-mails.

On the e-mail clients were told that some things couldnt be explained with words alone and, for this reason, Audi had created specifically for them a unique and personal experience: "Your Lifes Work", which they could only enjoy by accessing the website.

On website clients could see the composition created with the scored sended by e-mail, made up from his personal data and

generated in real time. At the same time, an emotional text appeared, which listed the clients personal data (age, Audi model, place of residence and interests). Each one of these items was shown on a different screen and was accompanied by the

music staff, an appropriate visual and a personalized music loop.

The music staff reacted to the musics tempo and interacted with the visual assigned to each variable. The visuals graphically depicted the meaning of each variables data and were also animated to the melodys rhythm. For example, if the client in question was the owner of a Q7, the music staff adopted the profile of a mountain range, over which snowflakes started falling

and reacting to the musical loop that was playing; if the client was from Seville, a compass rose was shown and sparkles

appeared over the south point in time with the sound of a Spanish guitar; a client with an interest in golf was shown the visual

of a golf ball bouncing over the music staff in time with the music.

In the closing screen the client could download his personalized MP3 file with his name, experience his melody again, post it

on Facebook or even experience other clientspersonalized melodies to confirm that his work was truly unique.

RESULTS

The birthday greeting was sent to 200,000 clients and became an incredible strategic brand action, getting over 76,000 clients

to update their personal information (38% of all the recipients) and so improving by 33% on the results of previous specific

qualification actions.

Clients opened 112,300 e-mails (over 56%) and the number of unique clicks climbed the usual average on the brand, reaching

a 74% ratio. So, 80,000 clients came into the website from the e-mail.

Additionally, the present was very well received, since the MP3 file was downloaded in 85% of the cases (almost 128,000

unique downloads) and the experience went viral through Facebook in 27% of the cases.

Total Cost: Rollout 50,000100,000

Additional reasons for recognition:

This campaign is an example of how it is possible to turn an action as strategic and rational as data collection into a truly

creative communication which is relevant for the target audience and effective for the brand.

This action shows how far one can go in the personalization field if a good Database is available. The communication conveys

to clients in a familiar and didactic way the importance of providing their data to the brand, as well as how useful these can be

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for non-commercial purposes.

CREDITS

Agency: CP Proximity

CCO Eva Santos

Account Director AmandaMuiz

Account Executive Blanca Led

Creative Supervisor Alba Vence

Art Director Rodrigo Chaparreiro

Programmer Bruno Mateos

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