AutoTrader and MINI: Great British Weekends Brand Partnership

Background:

Auto Trader and MINI’s Great British Weekends campaign is a fantastic example of rich creativity underpinned by data to create a highly effective partnership. What sets the campaign apart is not just the engaging rich content we created for MINI but also the fact the Creative Solution had genuine tangible real-world ROI. Illustrated is Auto Trader’s ability to correlate engagement to actual sales of cars as a direct result of the bespoke content we created for MINI.

The aims of the campaign were to recruit new MINI advocates in the form of ‘Hand Raisers’, engage prospective fans with exciting bespoke content reminding consumers of the iconic Britishness of the brand. Furthermore, many consumers don’t understand MINI’s range so another part of our mission was to tell the story no matter what life-stage you’re in, there’s a MINI for you. At the heart of all of our communications is that MINI is a fun brand with iconic design and their cars are exciting to drive.

The Big Idea:

The creative idea came from the insight that cars play a role as social enablers and are the conduit to good times and new memories. They can transport you to new places and experiences. Therefore we anchored MINI Cars as the ultimate gatekeeper of weekend good times and memories.

Part of the way we told this story is that we aligned a different member of our Editorial Team to a different MINI model based on their personalities and interests. We created three short films where we celebrated the Weekend with the spotlighted MINI model and its attributes at the heart of the narrative unfolding.

Road Tester Ruth Frances, who is a bit of a Fashionista, was aligned to the new MINI 5 door Hatch and took it on a road trip to Bristol to celebrate the arts, music scene and café culture.  Jon Quirk, our outdoorsy Editor-In-Chief, was a perfect match for the Jungle Green MINI Countryman and took it on an extreme sports weekend to North Wales. Finally, Road-Test Editor Ivan Aistrop is an adrenalin junkie and drove the JCW Roadster. MINI is renowned for having go-kart handling, so we thought we’d put the John Cooper Works Roadster on a Go-Kart Track to test this. The results were stunning and we housed the videos and all content that paid homage to MINI on a bespoke Content Hub that we created.

https://promotions.Auto Trader.co.uk/mini-great-british-weekends/

The Results:

The actual results of the campaign proved the partnership was effective and emotionally resonated with the target audience driving real world value. Our use of data helped us map the consumer journey in the Creative Solution in terms of ROI – 126 people who interacted with the content and videos went onto buy a MINI. We engaged a total of 125,000 unique users for an average of 1 min 30 secs each. Visitors who interacted with the Hub content were 43% more likely to search for a MINI and overall MINI searches on Auto Trader increased by 20% during the lifetime of the campaign. We also recruited 7,738 Hand-Raisers who entered the competition and wanted more info on MINI going forward. The campaign was an IPA Award which you can read about here: http://www.ipamoa.co.uk/Submission-Winners-2015/best-online-campaign/28521

Michelle Roberts, General Manager at MINI brand communications, said: “This campaign perfectly showcases how a close partnership with Auto Trader helped us demonstrate the spirit that lies at the heart of MINI’s ‘The Great British Weekend’ ethos. The tailored content celebrates the brand’s heritage and showcases each vehicle’s unique positioning and capability along with the different experiences MINI models can help you enjoy throughout the UK.”