2012 Bronze Best customer acquisition campaign

Client Mini Finance

How did the campaign make a difference? MINI prefers to do the opposite of what's expected, so it told everyone how boring and embarrassing its finance is. This resulted in 73,469 searches, click-through rates of 7.62% against an industry average of 2.9% and a cost-per-click 19% lower than industry average. Plus, 2,870 test drives and 4,275 confirmed sales leads.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Looking at MINI's finance table, one thing jumped out: sensible. But MINI laughs in the face of sensible. That said, sensible’s what you want from finance. And so ’embarrassingly sensible’ was born. Finance so sensible that it made MINI blush and hide its face in shame. It meant a campaign a million miles away from anything else in such a dry sector, giving true standout. While the offers were very tactical, down and dirty, they still were absolutely in line with MINI's brand values. After all, who else could get away with such a cheeky, irreverent tone?

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? A clever use of media really brought the message to life. Instead of one big space on a page, each ad had two little ones. Online MINI went scarlet with embarrassment. This tone carried right across a range of very different tactical finance offers, giving the work a real cohesion, even though the offerings were very different. Calling insurance boring was a tough sell (to say the least) to MINI's insurance department. But it was disarmingly honest and a great way to illustrate the free insurance proposition. Lift doors were used to bring to life the 50:50 offer of MINI paying half towards your new MINI for two years. This highlighted the fact that MINI is splitting the cost with you. Being on lift doors in shopping centres with car parks, the ad was incredibly well targeted

Results A light-hearted approach gave this work standout in a cluttered sector. Searches went through the sunroof despite the hard economic climate (particularly within the automotive sector) and click-through rates were well over twice the sector average. Cost-per-click rates were significantly lower than industry average. Targets were to achieve test drives and the campaign smashed these. What's more this campaign didn't just achieve tactical short-term results, it also built on brand values, showing that MINI can even make boring old finance deals feel a bit more alive. This is one of the most successful tactical campaigns MINI has ever run.

Team Michael Poole, Alan Mackie, Nicky Bullard, Chris Daplyn, Carla West, Zoe Senior, Philippa Sidney, Emma Heaton