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Brief
Honda Motorcycles, the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles, asked us to help them launch their highly anticipated new motorcycle, the VFR1200F (VFR).
News around its development was a hugely guarded secret, as it was rumoured to be a giant technological step forward. As the world leader in hi-tech motorcycle development, and with the VFR as their flagship product, Honda knew that they couldn’t launch the motorcycle in any ordinary way. Instead of using the usual automotive launch tactics, they tasked us with finding a way to launch the VFR purely online, across the whole of Europe simultaneously.
Our objectives were to generate 350,000 visits to a VFR specific micro site, and generate 35,000 prospect leads across all of their European sales territories. Except we had a huge caveat – we only had one month to complete the project due to a number of confidentiality concerns surrounding the revolutionary technology in the VFR.
Thinking
The VFR was first released in1986 and instantly stood out from the competition. For our launch we wanted to know what people were saying, what they liked, what they didn’t and where they were talking. Oh and we wanted to know this across 11 countries in 13 languages. We found the VFR has been loved and talked about consistently for 24 years. Large conversations were happening on both automotive as well as non automotive websites.
With a huge amount of enthusiasm for the inevitable successor, we were concerned about relying on the reputation of its forebears. Honda were also particularly apprehensive about how they could convert this passion into actual sales. Our planners realised that we had two tasks, we needed to leverage these conversations and ensure we could tweak them to be as favourable as possible whilst remaining neutral as well as generating the right leads. Any one can generate leads but generating leads that are the right prospect at the right time in their purchase process is key.
We also found there has been speculation about the new VFR over the last few years and we wanted to keep interest at a peak before, during and after launch so that we didn’t lose momentum.
After discussions with the client team about available content, we decided our efforts should be spread across a two stage process:
1) Create a pre-launch, pan-European micro site to capture prospect data (from existing VFR concept artwork)
2) Create a launch micro site (with the complete VFR assets when available), pushed to this new prospect pool on the date of the European wide launch
Across these two stages we wanted to maximise the online chatter by actually adapting what content we were putting on the site to reflect what people were saying ensuring a more consistently positive consumer voice about the VFR.
Execution
With a simultaneous pan-European launch required, our data team quickly assessed the relevant compliance rules and statutory requirements for collecting data from prospect across the 11 different countries that Honda Motorcycles covered in Europe and answering tough questions such as “if a prospect enters a UK competition and lives in Spain what do we do with the data?”. At the same time, our technology experts examined the plethora of different methods to create two 13 language micro sites quickly and efficiently as well as being able to track right down to the country and banner or email they came from.
To drive traffic to the pre-launch site, our planning team realised that our most cost effective method to generate the required volume of relevant leads would be through affiliate marketing. Whilst other methods available to us could have driven the required traffic levels with ease, from previous experience with Honda Cars we knew that the volume of relevant prospects signing up would be poor.
We worked with our affiliate marketing partners across Europe to draw up a pay-per-lead structure based on lead quality utilising feedback loops where we sent a score from every lead back to the affiliate partners ensuring that we generate the most relevant leads in each country. We also monitored the make up of the lead for any screen scraping or address generating sites as we were working across such a large number of country and language Variances.
Our creative team designed a series of interactive data capture banners (tailored to each specific country and language), inviting prospects the chance to win an invite to the European press launch so that they could be one of the first to ride the new VFR. We monitored the best performers and redelivered a second phase of asset to the networks.
This incentivised data capture programme provided Honda with two key details. One, what bike they were interested in, and two, when they were thinking about replacing it. With this information, as well as their preferred method of correspondence, Honda had all of the initial information so we could keep in touch with regular updates on the launch of the VFR, as well as start ongoing dialogue with these prospects in the long term.
With limited assets available for the pre-launch micro site, we focused on using existing creative themes and collateral from the recent showing of a teaser version of the new VFR at the Intermot show in Cologne, the “V4” concept model. “V4” referred to unique engine technology that Honda was planning on using in the new VFR, which had it’s with its own passionately creative heritage within the Honda brand. We decided to utilise the symbolism of the V4 technology to show how Honda was planning on pushing back motorcycling boundaries and challenging engineering conventions, by asking prospects to ‘Feel V4’.
Across both sites we had a timed delivery of assets and communications to the subscribers that this had been updated. We constantly monitored chatter about the content and bike and this fed in to the future updates for example if we heard “the bike seat looks too small we would describe how the seat was designed to fit any size and how a video about how this works”. This approach allowed us to give relevant content and keep engagement high as well as to alleviate negative comments in any of the countries.
• Pre launch micro site - http://www.feelv4.com
This site, promoted by the affiliate marketing banners, contained various emotive areas discussing the passion that had led to the technology, including the V4 engine that was to be used in the new VFR. With prospects signing up for additional information, we slowly drip fed exciting news and videos of the technology behind of the new VFR via email to keep consumers excited, built anticipation, and encourage repeat visits. The site included a highly visible countdown clock, timing down to the actual launch date.
• Launch micro site - http://www.feelvfr.com
As internal confidentiality barriers lifted, we were provided with a steady feed of new assets by Honda. Whilst some of this content was directed towards the pre launch micro site, the majority was still embargoed until the launch date. Whilst paying attention to confidentiality concerns, we used social media monitoring technology to see what the world was saying about the VFR, allowing us to prioritise and repurpose appropriate content to the pre launch micro site, or into development of the main launch micro site.
We decided to continue to utilise the creative proposition of the Feel V4 site, focusing on bringing out the passion that goes into every bit of technology on the new VFR. The launch site majored on explaining different features of the bike through animations of working parts, and videos showing the bike in use. We also included a full 360 degree model of the motorcycle, to allow prospects to see every last detail.
As well as providing a huge amount of content, we also had significant call to actions to register consumers who might have missed the Feel V4 micro site, allowing them to request a product brochure from their nearest dealer, and to download and share VFR content (c as video, sound and images as well as using our banners we provided to link to our website).
We launched the Feel VFR micro site on 8 October 2009 to the prospect pool we had accumulated from the Feel V4 pre launch micro site.
Results
Within a week of the Feel V4 pre launch micro site going live, we had over 550,000 unique visitors and over 45,000 qualified leads. Of the qualified leads, over 89% had double opted in to receive further communications from Honda.
With the qualified leads we had accumulated, we then set about keeping prospect engaged until the launch of the full Feel VFR micro site. We started on-going email dialogue with VFR prospect pool, maintaining excitement and anticipation to the European retail launch.
Before, during, and after the launch, we regularly updated site content and kept subscribers up-to-date via email updates to encourage repeat visits. All of the ongoing dialogue emails were sent via eCircle – Europe’s largest email transmitter. With our Sender Score Accredited status, we were guaranteed delivery to Yahoo! and MSN Hotmail with images automatically loaded, as well as by-passing most of the major corporate spam filters.
We achieved a 98.2% delivery rate, against industry averages of 94%, and a 50% open rate. Our click rate from delivered emails was 41% - a staggering achievement against an industry average of 8%.
More importantly, our activity has provided Honda Motorcycles with their first ever pan-European prospect pool. With our 40,000 contactable leads, covering the whole of Europe, Honda finally have the ability to market the VFR on an ongoing basis, as well as have a great audience for the launch of other Honda motorcycles and marketing initiatives. With over 39% of prospects interested in the sports tourer sector, 46% looking to purchase in 2010 and 35% in the key 36-50 year old category, Honda are firmly placed to begin targeted conversion activity when the VFR goes on sale.
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