2018 Bronze Best GDPR communication

Agency: Emerald Thinking

Client: Suzuki UK

Campaign name: Goodbye Boring, Hello to Exciting Communications from Suzuki

Campaign overview

Promising to convert mundane GDPR messages into eye-catching comms

The brief

Research revealed a minority of consumers understood the GDPR, so Suzuki needed to find a compelling way to persuade motorists to opt in to its communications.

Strategy

The stats didn’t lie: a minority of consumers were aware of the GDPR and only 18% said they engaged with branded emails.

Suzuki strove to reset its relationship with customers and prospects by putting the fun and relevance back into campaigns with the strategy: Goodbye Boring, Hello Exciting. Less of a re-permissioning drive, more of a promise of better comms.

With its playful brand, Suzuki was well placed to turn mundane GDPR marketing on its head.

There were four elements: a promise to only send interesting and useful comms to customers; bold creative, multichannel comms taking consumers on a drive “from boring to exciting”, including Facebook retargeting of lapsed customers; and a “thank you” email outlining the comms to come as a reward for opting in.

Creativity

Brave black and white executions were embellished with bold yellow calls to action, designed to work across all of Suzuki’s CRM channels as an integrated campaign.

The work challenged automotive industry norms, riffing on the idea of saying goodbye forever to boring comms – right through to the campaign landing page www.goodbyeboring.com, where the message switched from Goodbye Boring to Hello Exciting.

It featured colourful, moving images from recent Suzuki ads edited to look new, brave and compelling to read.

Results

The creative made consumers smile, and every channel outperformed industry benchmarks and campaign objectives.

Meanwhile, the majority of email and SMS responses were received in the first 24 hours following delivery.

The campaign engagement rate was 321% above average; email open rate averaged 50%, which was 64% above the Suzuki campaign open rate.

Facebook retargeting reached 2.57% CTR (compared to an industry average of 0.1%) and direct mail garnered an aboveaverage 4.5% response rate.

Team

Emerald Thinking - Claire Aldous, Head of Data Planning and Analytics

Red Brick Road - Iva Tanku, Account Manager - Patricia Synephias - Account Director - Lisa Gulley, Planning Director - Josh Tilley, Planner - Ben Markey, Creative Team - Copywriter - Baz Williamson, Creative Team - Art Direction

Gather - Brian Leddy, Senior Analyst - Hannah Jones, Analyst Gather

The7Stars - Max Gold, Account Director

Acuity - Matt Shaw, Creative Account Director

Call-It Automotive - Rachel Hooper, Operations Director

Aqueduct - Prash Menon, Head of Projects

Suzuki GB - Clair Phillips, CRM Manager

Contributors

Gather, Acuity, Aqueduct, Call-It Automotive, Red Brick Road and The7Stars