Mazda3 – ‘Raise The Bar’
Mazda3
Issue 31 | June 2014
Agency
Balloon Dog
Creative Team
Creative Director: Cordell Burke Art Director: Chris Haynes Copywriter: Nick Cordell Designer: Ben Pye
Production Team
Reflex Litho: Paul Haste
Other Credits
Activity Manager: Jemma Marchant, Nathan Langdon CRM Manager, Mazda: Shirley Aston-Tang
Date
January 2014
Background
The convention-defying all-new Mazda3 hit the road in January 2014 and the brief was to take the 'Challengers' concept used to launch this new model on national TV and create a parallel piece for direct mail. The aim being to ensure a consistent marketing campaign, yet still produce an unconventional mail pack that stands alone in its own right.
Idea
To drive home Mazda's unconventional attitude, the mail pack drew parallels between historic challengers and the game-changing Mazda3. Just as the legendary high-jumper Dick Fosbury raised the bar for high jumping when he invented the 'Fosbury Flop' in the '60s, so the state-of-the-art Mazda3 has changed the game for drivers.
The call was for Mazda owners to 'challenge convention with the all-new Mazda3' and using Fosbury from the national television campaign as the creative vehicle, the question 'Are you ready to raise the bar?' was put to all recipients. While clearly referencing the connection with Fosbury, this also worked on a purely aspirational level. After all, wouldn't any typical, convention-defying Mazda owner want to reach higher? This thought of 'raising the bar' also lent itself directly to the opening concertina mechanic which, when raised – panel by panel – featured stunning shots of the all-new Mazda3 working in tandem with a shot of Dick Fosbury performing his revolutionary high jump.
Results
The DM pack generated 42 direct leads enquiring about a test drive or to find a local dealer. At a retail value of £16,695 for the all-new Mazda3, this amounted to potential sales of £701,190. Therefore, for every £1 spent on DM, a potential sale value of nearly £19.50, an ROI of 19.5:1 was generated.