Pay With Views
Opel Cars
Issue 47 | June 2018
Agency
J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam
Creative Team
Creative Directors Friso Ludenhoff, Maarten Vrouwes Senior Creative Art Michael Jansen
Production Team
Senior Concept Producer Andreas Moeller Digital Producer Reinier Slothouber Print Producer Chariva Geurts
Other Credits
Connection Strategist Angelique Schreuders Digital Designer Mark de Vis Visual Designer Ronald Mica Companies involved Carat, Isobar, Eboost, Doogle Amsterdam, 1Prospect
Date
April - June 2017
Background
In January 2017, Opel Netherlands introduced a new trim level in several models in what they called The Online Edition. The vehicles featured an extensive range of product features like 4G wifi, Apple carplay and Onstar, for Opel drivers who always want to be connected. The challenge was to create awareness for the Online Edition in a noisy and competitive market where every car brand was shouting about its new features.
Idea
The creative approach was to focus on influencers and YouTube because everybody knows that when it comes to the web, it's all about views. Views are quite literally worth money. So, for the introduction of the Online Edition, YouTube views were turned into a currency.
People in the Netherlands could film their Opel test drive, upload it onto YouTube and use the number of views they got to buy a brand new Opel Online. The KARL ROCKS Online Edition cost 589,000 views, the Corsa, 739.600 views and the Astra, 922,800 views.
Results
The campaign earned media worth ?841,884,32 and attracted 34.4 million impressions (source: Carat). More than 97,000 people visited the campaign website with a 72% increase in visitors to Opel's website compared with the same period in 2016. In the wake of the campaign, orders of the Online Edition Opel increased by 29%. And Dutchman Yuri Schuurkes became the first person in the world to ever buy a car with YouTube views (an astonishing 21 million organic views for an unpromoted test drive!)
Our Thoughts
If you’re trying to reach a younger audience, the chances are they don’t watch much TV. And they have adblockers installed on their devices. So, how do you get through to them? Simple, you don’t. You get them to do it for you. According to Olga Egorsheva, co- founder of Lobster, videos about a brand created and uploaded by a normal human being will collect ten times more views than any video posted by a brand.
The trick is to have an idea that makes it worthwhile for your core target group to put in all that effort, filming, editing and uploading a video.
Frankly, it’s scary how imaginative ordinary people can be! Some of the videos do a great job for Opel because they are off-the-wall, funny and completely unlike anything agency creatives would do. Which is precisely the point.
People don’t want to watch ads, they want to watch people.